Carl Hiaasen – Sick Puppy

Desie said, “I understand.”

“Excellent. Now, we’ll need a cigar box.”

“OK.”

“A special cigar box,” Twilly said. “Are you going to help me or not?”

“Would you please chill out? Of course I’ll help. But first—”

“What?”

“First, I think I know somebody,” Desie said, turning toward the door, “who needs a nice long w-a-l-k… ”

McGuinn’s ebony ears shot up and his tail began flogging the tile.

12

“I spoke to the governor.”

Jesus, that wasn’t what Palmer Stoat wanted to hear from Robert Clapley; not while Stoat was tied to a bar stool, trussed up with an electrical cord in his own kitchen, the maid off for the day and a blond stranger with a stubby-barreled gun standing over him.

And Robert Clapley pacing back and forth, saying things such as: “Palmer, you are a fuckweasel of the lowest order. Is that not true?”

This, less than two hours after Stoat had phoned Clapley to break the news about the governor’s intention to veto the Shearwater Island bridge appropriation. Stoat, laying it off on Willie Vasquez-Washington—that sneaky spade/spic/redskin!—Stoat claiming it was Willie backing out of the deal, busting the governor’s balls to make him sign some bullshit budget rider guaranteeing minority contractors for the new Miami baseball stadium. Haitian plasterers, Cuban drywallers, Miccosukee plumbers—God only knows what all Willie was demanding! Stoat telling Clapley: It’s race politics. Bob. Amateur hour. Has nothing to do with you or me.

And Clapley, going ballistic (as Stoat had anticipated), hollering into the phone about betrayal, low-life double cross, revenge. And Stoat meanwhile working to soothe his young client, saying he had a plan to save the bridge. Wouldn’t be easy, Stoat had confided, but he was pretty sure he could pull it off. Then telling Clapley about the special session of the legislature that Dick Artemus had planned—for beefing up the education budget, Stoat had explained. There’d be tons of dough to go around, too, plenty for Clapley’s bridge. All he had to do was build an elementary school on Shearwater Island.

“Name it after yourself!” Stoat had enthused.

On the other end of the line there was a long silence that should have given Stoat the jitters, but it didn’t. Then Robert Clapley saying, in a tone that was far too level: “A school.”

You bet, Stoat had said. Don’t you see, Bob? A school needs school buses, and a school bus cannot possibly cross that creaky old wooden bridge to the island. So they’ll just have to build you a new one. They can’t possibly say no!

More silence on Clapley’s end, then what sounded like a grunt—and Stoat still not picking up on the inclemency of the situation.

“I think this is perfectly doable, Bob. I believe I can set this up.”

And Clapley, still in a monotone: “For how much?”

“Another fifty ought to do it.”

“Another fifty.”

“Plus expenses. There’ll be some travel,” Stoat had added. “And some dinners, I expect.”

“Let me get back to you, Palmer.”

Which were Robert Clapley’s last words on the matter, until he showed up unannounced at Stoat’s house. Him and the freak in the houndstooth checked suit. The man was short and broadly constructed, with incongruously moussed-up hair—dyed, too, because the ends were egg white and spiky, giving the effect of quills. Clapley’s man looked like he had a blond porcupine stapled to his skull.

Stoat had opened the front door and in they came. Before greetings could be exchanged, the spiky blond man had whipped out a stubby pistol, bound Stoat to the bar stool and dragged the bar stool into the kitchen. There Robert Clapley paced in front of the bay window, his diamond ear stud Clinting when he spun on his heels.

He began by addressing Stoat as follows: “Palmer, you are a world-class turd fondler.”

And so on, ending with: “I spoke to the governor.”

“Oh.” Stoat experienced a liquid flutter far, far down in his colon. He went icy at the prospect of being shot point-blank, which now seemed likely. Bitterly he thought of the Glock in the Range Rover’s glove compartment, and of the.38 in his bedroom, both useless in his singular moment of dire peril.

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