“Pretty ambitious,” Keyes said.
“It’s the least I can do,” Wiley said. “Brian, what is Florida anyway? An immense sunny toilet where millions of tourists flush their money and save the moment on Kodak film. The recipe for redemption is simple: scare away the tourists and pretty soon you scare off the developers. No more developers, no more bankers. No more bankers, no more lawyers. No more lawyers, no more dope smugglers. The whole motherfucking economy implodes! Now, tell me I’m crazy.”
Brian Keyes knew better than to do that.
Wiley’s long hair glinted gold in the Bahamian sun. He wore a look of lionly confidence. “So the question,” he went on, “is how to scare away the tourists.”
“Murder a few,” Keyes said.
“For starters.”
“Skip, there’s got to be another way.”
“No!” Wiley shot to his feet, uprooting the beach umbrella with his head. “There … is … no … other … way! Think about it, you mullusk-brained moron! What gets headlines? Murder, mayhem, and madness—the cardinal M’s of the newsroom. That’s what terrifies the travel agents of the world. That’s what rates congressional hearings and crime commissions. And that’s what frightens off bozo Shriner conventions. It’s a damn shame, I grant you that. It’s a shame I simply couldn’t stand up at the next county commission meeting and ask our noble public servants to please stop destroying the planet. It’s a shame that the people who poisoned this paradise won’t just apologize and pack their U-Hauls and head back North to the smog and the blizzards. But it’s a proven fact they won’t leave until somebody lights a fire under ‘em. That’s what Las Noches de Diciembre is all about. ‘Cops Seek Grisly Suitcase Killer’ … ‘Elderly Woman Abducted, Fed to Vicious Reptile’ … ‘Golf Course Bomb Claims Three on Tricky Twelfth Hole’ … ‘Crazed Terrorists Stalk Florida Tourists.’“ Wiley was practically chanting the headlines, as if he were watching them roll off the presses at the New York Post.
“Sure, it’s cold-blooded,” he said, “but that’s the game of journalism for you. It’s the only game I know, but I know how to win.”
“The old hype button,” Keyes said.
“You got it, Ace!” Wiley slapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go find your funny friends.”
They walked up Cable Beach. Keyes sidestepped the wavelets but Wiley crashed ahead, kicking water with his enormous slabs of feet. He cocked his head high, chin thrust toward the sun.
“If you hate tourists so much,” Keyes said, “why’d you come here, of all places?”
“Sovereignty,” Wiley replied, “and convenience. Besides, the Bahamas is different from Florida. The A.Q. here is only forty-two.”
A.Q., Keyes remembered, stood for Asshole Quotient. Skip Wiley had a well-known theory that the quality of life declined in direct proportion to the Asshole Quotient. According to Wiley’s reckoning, Miami had 134 total assholes per square mile, giving it the worst A.Q. in North America. In second place was Aspen, Colorado (101), with Malibu Beach, California, finishing third at 97.
Every year Skip Wiley wrote a column rating the ten most unbearable places on the continent according to A.Q., and every year the city editor diligently changed “Asshole Quotient” to “Idiot Quotient” before the column could be published. The next day Wiley would turn in a new column apologizing to his readers because he’d neglected to count one more total asshole, that being his own editor. And of course Wiley’s editor would immediately delete that, too. After a few years it was obvious that even Skip Wiley couldn’t get the word asshole into the Miami Sun, but the whole newsroom looked forward to the annual struggle.
“The great thing about the Bahamas,” Wiley was saying, “is that they don’t let the tourists stay. Trying to buy property here is like trying to get a personal audience with the pope. Damn near impossible without the right connections. So, Mr. and Mrs. Mickey Mouse Ears from Akron can come and tinkle away all their money, but then it’s bye-bye, leavin’ on a jet plane. Punch out at immigrations. Too bad they didn’t think of this system in Florida.”
“Florida’s not an island, Skip.”
Wiley hopped over two Bahamian children who were wrestling in the water. His gravelly, melodic laughter mixed with their giggles and carried into the surf.