Skink said, “Tell me later, Jim.”
“No, I need to tell you now. Artemus says somebody else is out hunting for this boy. Somebody bad.”
“Imagine that.”
“Well, you need to know.” The trooper waved. “Ten o’clock sharp?”
Skink nodded heavily. “With bells on.” He bent over and plucked the Schweppes can out of the roots. He tossed it into the John-boat, where it clattered against the others.
The trooper chuckled. “Nice shot.” He jerked the starter cord and the outboard motor hiccuped to life.
Skink stood on the shore, twirling his twin buzzard beaks. “Jim, I’m sorry. I truly am.”
“For what, Governor?”
“For whatever’s coming,” he said. “I’m sorry in advance.” Then he turned and splashed into the trees.
15
As agreed, Governor Dick Artemus vetoed from the state budget all $27.7 million set aside for “the Toad Island-Shearwater bridge and highway-improvement project.” Other funds blocked by the governor included $17.5 million for the construction and promotion of a Southern Bowler’s Hall of Fame in Zolfo Springs; $14.2 million for the “agronomic testing” of a technique to genetically remove the navel-like aperture from navel oranges; $2.6 million to rebuild Aqua Quake, a simulated tidal-wave attraction owned by the uncle of a state senator, and destroyed in a fire of dubious origin; and $375,000 to commence a captive breeding program for the endangered rose-bellied salamander, of which only seven specimens (all males) were known to survive.
In all, Dick Artemus used a line-item veto to eliminate more than $75 million in boondoggles. Except for the Toad Island bridge, all had been proposed by Democrats. Among the items not vetoed by the governor were numerous frivolities initiated by his fellow Republicans, including: $24.2 million to redesign a private golf course in Sarasota, ostensibly to attract a PGA tournament but in truth to spruce up the back nine for the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, who owned three prime lots along the fourteenth fairway; $8.4 million for the purchase of an abandoned South Dade tomato farm liberally appraised at $561,000, purportedly to expand the crucial buffer around Everglades National Park, but actually to enrich the absentee owners of the property, who had contributed magnanimously to the state Republican Committee; $19.1 million to pave and widen to six lanes a gravel road leading to a 312-acre cow pasture in Collier County, said pasture being the as-yet-unannounced future site of a mammoth outlet mall, its silent developer partners including the wife, sister-in-law and niece of the Republican Speaker of the House.
None of the pet projects overlooked by Governor Dick Artemus made the newspapers, but the vetos did. Desie found the list in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, beneath the following headline:
GOVERNOR AXES $75 MILLION FROM BUDGET
DECLARES WAR ON POLITICAL “PORK”
Desie read the story aloud to Twilly Spree in the truck.
“Be happy,” she told him. “You did it. The bridge is history.”
Twilly said, “We’ll see.” He held one hand on the steering wheel and one hand out the window of the pickup, cupping air. He nodded when Desie asked if he was still thinking about the dream.
She said, “You know what a psychologist would say? A psychologist would say you had a breakthrough.”
“Anything’s possible.” Twilly didn’t seem unhappy or upset; only absorbed.
Desie said, “Do you remember asking me to stay?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you?”
“Because I was scared.”
“Of what—more dreams?”
Twilly smiled. “No, not dreams.” He adjusted the rearview to check on McGuinn, riding in the bed of the truck. “You think he’s OK back there?”
“Oh, he’s loving life,” Desie said.
“I think he ought to be riding with us.”
“Twilly, he’s in heaven.”
“But what if it starts to rain—”
“He’s a Labrador!”
“But he’s been sick. He shouldn’t be out in the weather.”
Twilly parked on the shoulder and brought McGuinn into the cab, between him and Desie. It proved to be a cramped arrangement, made worse by an onset of canine flatulence.
“From the dog food,” Desie explained. “Liver-flavored is the worst.”
Twilly grimaced. He got off at the next exit and stopped at a Buick dealership, where he traded in the pickup truck on a 1992 Road-master station wagon. The entire transaction took twenty-one minutes, Twilly making up the difference in cash that he peeled from a wad in his denim jacket. Desie watched, intrigued.