“Can’t someone try to block it?” Kara Lynn suggested. “The Audubon people. Or maybe the National Park Service.”
“Too late,” Wiley said. “See, it’s a private island. After old man Bradshaw died, his scumball kids put it up for sale. Puerco Development picks it up for three mil and wham, next thing you know it’s rezoned for multi-family high-rise.”
“Didn’t you do a column on this?” she asked.
“I sure did.” One of Wiley’s many pending lawsuits: a gratuitous and unprovable reference to Mafia connections.
“Back to the blandishments,” he said, “there’ll be four air-conditioned racketball courts, a spa, a bike trail, a tennis complex, a piazza, two fountains, and even a waterfall. Think about that: they’re going to bury the natural spring and build a fiberglass waterfall! Progress, my darling. It says here they’re also planting something called a lush green-belt, which is basically a place for rich people to let their poodles take a shit.”
Kara Lynn said: “How will people get out here?”
“Ferry,” Wiley answered. “See here: Take a quaint ferry to your very own island where the Mediterranean meets Miami! See, Kara Lynn, the bastards can’t sell Florida anymore, they’ve got to sell the bloody Riviera.”
“It sounds a bit overdone,” she said.
“Twenty-four hundred square feet of overdone,” Wiley said, “with a view.”
“But no ospreys,” said Kara Lynn, sensing the downward spiral of his emotions.
“And no eagle,” Wiley said glumly.
He acted as if he were ready to leave, and Kara Lynn knew that if he did, it would be over.
“Why did you pick me?” she asked.
Wiley turned to look at her. “Because you’re perfect,” he said. “Or at least you represent perfection. Beauty. Chastity. Innocence. All tanned and blond, the golden American dream. That’s all they really promise with their damn parade and their unctuous tourist advertising. Come see Miami, come see the girls! But it’s a cheap tease, darling. Florida’s nothing but an adman’s wet dream.”
“That’s enough,” Kara Lynn said, reddening.
“I take it you don’t think of yourself as a precious piece of ass.”
“Not really, no.”
“Me, neither,” Wiley said, “but we are definitely in the minority. And that’s why we’re out here now—an object lesson for all those bootlicking shills and hustlers.”
Wiley crawled out from under the plastic tent and rose to his full height, declaring, “The only way to teach the greedy blind pagans is to strike at their meager principles.” He pointed toward the treetops. “To the creators of the Osprey Club, that precious eagle up there is not life, it has no real value. Same goes for the wood rats and the herons. Weighed against the depreciated net worth of a sixteen-story condominium after sellout, the natural inhabitants of this island do not represent life—they have no fucking value. You with me?”
Kara Lynn nodded. She still couldn’t see the big bird.
“Now,” Wiley said, “if you’re the CEO of Puerco Development, what has worth to you, besides money? What is a life? Among all creatures, what is the one that cannot legally be extinguished for the sake of progress?” Wiley arched his eyebrows and pointed a dripping finger at Kara Lynn’s nose. “You,” he said. “You are, presumably, inviolate.”
For the first time in the conversation, it occurred to Kara Lynn that this fellow might truly be insane.
Wiley blinked at her. “I’ll be right back,” he said.
This time she didn’t move. Wet and cold, she had come to cherish the meager protection of the plastic shelter. Wiley returned carrying a short wooden stake. An orange plastic streamer was attached to the blunt end.
“Survey markers,” Kara Lynn said.
“Very good. So you know what it means—construction is imminent.”
“How imminent?” she asked.
“Like tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow’s the groundbreaking?”
“Naw, that was Christmas Eve. Purely ceremonial,” Wiley said. “Tomorrow is much more significant. Tomorrow’s the day they start terrain modification.”
“What’s that?”
“Just what it says.”
Kara Lynn was puzzled. “I don’t see any bulldozers.”
“No, those would be used later, for contour clearing.”
“Then what do they use for this ‘terrain modification’?” she asked.
“Dynamite,” Skip Wiley replied. “At dawn.”
Kara Lynn thought she might have heard him wrong, thought it might have been a trick of the wind.