Political suicide, marveled Lisa June Peterson. The man would’ve had more success trying to legalize LSD.
To an avid student of government, Clinton Tyree’s stay in Tallahassee was as fascinating as it was brief. He was probably right about almost everything, thought Lisa June Peterson, yet he did almost everything wrong. He cursed at press conferences. He gave radical speeches, quoting from Dylan, John Lennon and Lenny Bruce. He let himself go, shambling barefoot and unshaven around the capitol. As popular as Clinton Tyree had been with the common folk of Florida, he’d stood no chance—none whatsoever—of disabling the machinery of greed and converting the legislature to a body of foresight and honest ethics. It was boggling to think a sane person would even try.
But perhaps Tyree was not sane. Look at his brother, thought Lisa June Peterson; maybe it runs in the family. Look at the way the governor had blown town, fleeing the capitol after his Cabinet had betrayed him by closing a wildlife preserve and selling the seaside property to well-connected developers. So swift and complete was Tyree’s disappearance that people initially thought he’d been kidnapped or murdered, or even had done himself in—until the letter of resignation arrived, the angry slash of a signature verified by FBI experts. Lisa June Peterson had made two photocopies of the historic missive; one for Dick Artemus and one for her scrapbook.
For a short while after Clinton Tyree vanished, the newspapers had been full of gossip and speculation. Then nothing. Not a single journalist had been able to find him for an interview or a photograph. Over the years his name had popped up intermittently in the files of the state Department of Law Enforcement—purported sightings in connection with certain crimes, some quite bizarre. But Lisa June Peterson had found no record of an arrest, and in fact no solid proof of the ex-governor’s involvement. Yet the mere idea he was still alive, brooding in some gnarly wilderness hermitage, was beguiling.
I’d give anything to meet him, Lisa June thought. I’d love to find out if he really snapped.
Never would she have guessed what her boss wanted with her research. She didn’t know Dick Artemus had stayed up until 4:00 a.m. one night, grubbing through the documents and clippings until he seized with excitement upon the tragic story of Doyle Tyree, the ex-governor’s brother. Nor did Lisa June Peterson know about the unsigned communique given by her boss to the black state trooper, or the icy nature of her boss’s threat.
And so she was unaware of the event she had set in motion: a man coming wounded and bitter out of deep swamp; a man such as she had never known, or imagined.
“Money is no object,” Palmer Stoat said into the phone.
On the other end was Durgess. “This ain’t only about money. It’s about major jail time.”
“The Chinaman hung up on me.”
“Yessir. He don’t like telephones.”
“One lousy horn is all I need,” Stoat said.
“Can’t you reach out to him? Tell him the money’s no object.”
Durgess said, “You gotta understand, it’s not been a good year for the rhino trade. Some of the boys we normally use, they got busted and went to jail.”
“Does he know who I am? The Chinaman,” said Stoat, “does he know how well connected I am?”
“Sir, you shot the last rhino we had on-site. Used to be Mr. Yee could do business direct with Africa, but Africa’s shut down for a couple months. Africa got too hot.”
Palmer Stoat paused to light up an H. Upmann, only to find the taste metallic and sugary. It was then he remembered, with revulsion, the cherry cough drop in his cheek. Violently he spit the lozenge onto his desk.
“You mean to tell me,” he said to Durgess, “that for the obscene price of fifty thousand dollars, your intrepid Mr. Yee cannot locate one single solitary rhinoceros horn anywhere on planet Earth?”
“I didn’t say that,” said Durgess. “There’s a private zoo in Argentina wants to sell us an old male that’s all broke down with arthritis.”
“And he’s still got his horns?”
“Damn well better,” Durgess said.