dispatcher: Yes, sir, we’ve got units en route. Could you give me a description of the suspect?
caller: He’s about six two, two hundred forty pounds, dark curly hair.
dispatcher: What’s his full name?
caller: Hell, I got no idea. He doesn’t even work for me, OK? Tim is all I know—Tim, the day-shift loading-ramp guy.
dispatcher: Does he have any—sir, you there? Sir?
caller: Yeah, I’m still here. Can’t you hear all those shots? Don’t you understand what’s going on here? All [bleeping] hell is breaking loose. The man is runnin’ from office to office, poppin’ the supervisors—
dispatcher: Does this Tim have any distinguishing features, any scars or tattoos?
caller: No, lady, but he won’t be hard to pick out. He’ll be the only one with five smoking handguns. In fact, he’ll be the only one here with a pulse, if the cops don’t show up real soon… Oh Jesus!
dispatcher: Sir?
caller: Hey there, Timmy boy!… Howzit goin’, bro?… Yeah, it’s me… Oh, just catchin’ a few z’s here in the old broom closet… So how’s it going? Man, you look really stressed—
dispatcher: Sir, please don’t hang up. Sir?
Mr. Gash was buoyed by the panic that infused the tape recording; it connected him to a more familiar realm, and temporarily relieved his sense of dreary isolation on Toad Island. Back and forth across the bridge he went, reasoning that it was the best way to monitor who was coming and going. No cars or trucks could slip past, while small boats approaching from the mainland would be visible from the low span.
But even with his 911 emergency tapes in the car, Mr. Gash found himself battling boredom and impatience. Part of him wanted to bag the Clapley job and rush home to his comfortable apartment on South Beach, where he could change to a clean houndstooth suit and get some sushi on Lincoln Road and then head to the clubs, scouting for girls. One was never enough for Mr. Gash. Oh, he was way past one-on-one. Two was all right but three was even better. In his apartment Mr. Gash had a custom-made bed, double the width of a standard king. Bolted into the overhead ceiling beams was a pulley rig, to which was attached a harness made of the choicest green iguana hides. A furniture upholsterer on Washington Avenue had tailored the lizard-skin harness to fit Mr. Gash’s block-like torso; first-rate work, too, and reasonably priced.
That’s what Mr. Gash was daydreaming about doing—dangling from his ceiling above three writhing long-legged women, one of them wielding platinum ice tongs—when a station wagon carrying a large dog sped past going the other direction, across the bridge toward the island. Mr. Gash was sniggering as he wheeled around to follow. He could see the dog’s pitch-black head jutting from a window; Mr. Gash was almost certain it was a Labrador. And, from a quarter of a mile away, Mr. Gash counted only one black ear flapping in the wind.
Bingo! he thought, and eagerly stepped on the gas.
The dog, it turned out, was a black Labrador retriever. Both ears, however, were intact—the one invisible to Mr. Gash had merely been turned inside out. The dog’s name was Howard and he belonged to Ann and Larry Dooling of Reston, Virginia. They did not resemble the young couple described to Mr. Gash by the fatally dweebish Dr. Brinkman. The Doolings were in their mid-sixties; she was retired from the Smithsonian, he from the U.S. Commerce Department. They had come to Florida for the sunshine, and to Toad Island in particular for the beach, where Mr. Gash had approached them on the pretense of seeking directions. Once he determined they were tourist goobs, not ecoterrorists or dognapping extortionists, he endeavored to terminate the conversation and clear out.
But Larry Dooling slapped a cold sweaty Budweiser in his hand and said: “We been all over this damn state, looking for a decent beach. By ‘decent,’ I mean peaceful and quiet.”
“The brochures,” chimed Ann Dooling, “are very misleading.”
Howard the dog sniffed the tops of Mr. Gash’s shoes while Larry Dooling recounted the many beaches in Florida that had disappointed them on their travels. “Fort Lauderdale, of course—just try to find a parking space there, I dare ya’. Miami we steered clear of. Vero was OK but they had a shark warning posted, so we couldn’t swim. Palm Beach, it was poison jellyfish. And what possessed us to take a chance on Daytona, I’ll never know.”