TOURIST SEASON by Carl Hiaasen

But Dr. Allen came first. Ricky Bloodworth knew the phone number of the coroner’s office by heart; memorizing it was one of the first things he’d done after joining the paper.

When Dr. Allen got on the line, Bloodworth asked, “What’s your theory, Doc?”

“Somebody tied up Sparky and made him swallow a rubber alligator,” the coroner said.

“Cause of death?”

“Asphyxiation.”

“How do you know he didn’t swallow it on purpose?”

“Did he cut off his own legs, too?”

“You never know,” Bloodworth said. “Maybe it started out as some kinky sex thing. Or maybe it was voodoo, all these Haitians we got now. Or santeria.”

“Sparky was a Baptist, and the police are calling it a homicide.”

“They’ve been wrong before.”

Ricky Bloodworth was not one of Dr. Allen’s favorite newspaper reporters. Dr. Allen regarded him as charmless and arrogant. There had been times, when the prospect of a frontpage story loomed, that Dr. Allen could have sworn he saw flecks of foam on Bloodworth’s lips.

Now the coroner listened to Bloodworth’s typing on the end of the phone line, and wondered how badly his quotes were being mangled.

“Ricky,” he said impatiently. “The victim’s wrists showed ligature marks—”

“Any ten-year-old can tie himself up.”

“And stuff himself in a suitcase?”

The typing got faster.

“The victim was already deceased when he was placed in the suitcase,” Dr. Allen said. “Is there anything else?”

“What about the oil? One of the cops said the body was coated with oil.”

“Not oil,” Dr. Allen said. “A combination of benzophenone, stearic acids, and lanolin.”

“What’s that?”

“Suntan lotion,” the coroner said. “With coconut butter.”

Ricky Bloodworth was hammering away on his video terminal when he sensed a presence behind him. He turned slightly, and caught sight of Skip Wiley’s bobbing face. Even with a two-day stubble it was a striking visage: long, brown, and rugged-looking; a genetic marvel, every feature plagiarized from disparate ancestors. The cheekbones were high and sculptured, the nose pencil-straight but rather long and flat, the mouth upturned with little commas on each cheek, and the eyes disarming—small and keen, the color of strong coffee; full of mirth and something else. Skip Wiley was thirty-seven years old but he had the eyes of an old Gypsy.

It made Bloodworth abnormally edgy and insecure when Skip Wiley read over his shoulder. Wiley wrote a daily column for the Sun and probably was the best-known journalist in Miami. Undeniably he was a gifted writer, but around the newsroom he was regarded as a strange and unpredictable character. Wiley’s behavior had lately become so odd that younger reporters who once sought his counsel were now fearful of his ravings, and they avoided him.

“Coconut butter?” Wiley said gleefully. “And no legs!”

“Skip, please.”

Wiley rolled up a chair. “I think you should lead with the coconut butter.”

Bloodworth felt his hands go damp.

Wiley said, “This is awful, Ricky: ‘Friends and colleagues of B. D. Harper expressed grief and outrage Tuesday … ‘ Jesus Christ, who cares? Give them coconut oil!”

“It’s a second-day lead, Skip—”

“Here we go again, Mr. Journalism School.” Wiley was gnawing his lower lip, a habit manifested only when he composed a news story. “You got some good details in here. The red Royal Tourister. The black Ray-Bans. That’s good, Ricky. Why don’t you toss out the rest of this shit and move the juicy stuff up top? Do your readers a favor, for once. Don’t make ‘em go on a scavenger hunt for the goodies.”

Bloodworth was getting queasy. He wanted to defend himself, but it was lunacy to argue with Wiley.

“Maybe later, Skip. Right now I’m jammed up for the first edition.”

Wiley jabbed a pencil at the video screen, which displayed Bloodworth’s story in luminous green text. “Brutal? That’s not the adjective you want. When I think of brutal I think of chain saws, ice picks, ax handles. Not rubber alligators. No, that’s mysterious, wouldn’t you say?”

“How about bizarre?”

“A bit overworked these days, but not bad. When’s the last time you used bizarre?”

“I don’t recall, Skip.”

“Try last week, in that story about the Jacuzzi killing in Hialeah. Remember? So it’s too early to use bizarre again. I think mysterious is the ticket.”

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