Sick Puppy (33 page)

CALLER:
Eh izzh Engizh! Mah ung gaw zzha off! Whif ah gung!

DISPATCHER:
Hang on, Mr. Boogozer, I’m transferring you to someone who can take the information. . . .

CALLER:
Ngooohh! Hep! Peezh!

DISPATCHER TWO:
Diga. ¿Dónde estás?

CALLER:
Aaaaaagghh!!!

DISPATCHER TWO:
¿Tienes un emergencia?

CALLER:
Oh fugghh. I gaw die.

DISPATCHER TWO:
Señor, por favor, no entiendo nada que estás diciendo.

CALLER:
Hep! . . . Hep!

26

As a car salesman Dick Artemus encountered plenty of pissed-off folks—furious, frothing, beet-faced customers who believed they’d been gypped, deceived, baited, switched or otherwise butt-fucked. They were brought to Dick Artemus because of his silky demeanor, his indefatigable geniality, his astounding knack for making the most distraught saps feel good about themselves—indeed, about the whole human race! Regardless of how egregiously they’d been screwed over, no customers walked out of Dick Artemus’s office angry; they emerged placid, if not radiantly serene. It was a gift, the other car salesmen would marvel. A guy like Dick came along maybe once every fifty years.

As governor of Florida, this preternatural talent for bullshitting had served Dick Artemus exquisitely. Even his most virulent political enemies conceded he was impossible not to like, one-on-one. So how could it be, Dick Artemus wondered abjectly, that Clinton Tyree alone was immune to his personal magnetism? The man did
not
like him; detested him, in fact. Dick Artemus could draw no other conclusion, given that the ex-governor now held him by the throat, pinned to the wood-paneled wall of the gubernatorial dining room. It had happened so fast—dragged like a rag doll across the table, through the remaining tangy crescent of Key lime pie—that Dick Artemus had not had time to ring for Sean or the bodyguards.

Clinton Tyree’s brows twitched and his glass eyeball fluttered, and his grip was so hateful that the governor could not gulp out a word. That’s the problem, Dick Artemus lamented. If only this crazy bastard would ease up, maybe I could talk my way out of this mess.

In the tumult Clinton Tyree had lost his shower cap, and his refulgent bullet-headed baldness further enhanced the aura of menace. Looming inches from the governor’s meringue-smudged nose, he said: “I oughta open you up like a mackerel.”

It hurt Dick Artemus to blink, his face was so pinched.

“Nothing must happen to disturb my brother.
Ever,
” the ex-governor whispered hoarsely.

Dick Artemus managed a nod, the hinges of his jaw painfully obstructed by the brute’s thumb and forefinger.

“What exactly do you believe in, sir?”

“Uh?” peeped Dick Artemus.

“The vision thing. What’s yours—tract homes and shopping malls and trailer parks as far as the eye can see? More, more, more? More people, more cars, more roads, more houses.” Clinton Tyree’s breath was hot on the governor’s cheeks. “More, more, more,” he said. “More, more, more, more, more, more, more. . . .”

Dick Artemus felt his feet dangling—the madman was hoisting him one-handed by the neck. A terrified squeak escaped from the governor.

“I didn’t fit here, Dick,” Clinton Tyree was saying. “But you! This is your place and your time. Selling is what you do best, and every blessed inch of this state is for sale. Same as when I had your job, Dickie, only the stakes are higher now because there’s less of the good stuff to divvy up. How many islands are left untouched?”

Clinton Tyree laughed mordantly and let Dick Artemus slide down the wall. He hunched over him like a grave digger. “I know what I
ought
to do to you,” he said. “But that might get my friends in hot water, so instead. . . .”

And the next thing the governor knew, he had been stripped of his coat, shirt and necktie. He lay bare-chested on the floor, with 240 pounds of one-eyed psychopath kneeling on his spine.

“What the hell’re you doing?” he cried, then his head was roughly jerked backward until he could see the pitiless vermilion glow of Clinton Tyree’s dead eye.

“Hush now, Governor Dick.”

So Dick Artemus shut up and concentrated on bladder control, to preserve his dignity as well as the gubernatorial carpet. If Clinton Tyree did not intend to kill him, then what was he up to? Dick Artemus shivered when he felt his trousers being loosened and yanked down.

He thought: Aw Jesus, it’s just like
Deliverance.

Involuntarily his anus puckered, and he found himself suddenly ambivalent about the possibility of being rescued mid-sodomy—the headlines might be more excruciating than the crime. The only governor of Florida to be boned by a former governor on the floor of the governor’s mansion! There’s one for the history books, Dick Artemus thought disconsolately, and more than just a damn footnote.

Even worse than the threat of public humiliation was the potential political fallout. Was Florida ready to reelect a defiled chief executive? Dick Artemus had his doubts. He remembered how the audience felt about the Ned Beatty character at the end of the movie—you were sorry for the guy, but no one was standing in line for his next canoe trip.

A calloused paw grabbed one of the governor’s buttocks and he girded for the worst. Then: an unexpected sensation, like a dry twig scratching up and down his flesh, or the lusty play of a woman’s fingernails—sharp, yet pleasing. Dick Artemus remained motionless and oddly becalmed. He wondered what the big freak was doing, straddling his cheeks and humming so quietly to himself.

The bizarre proceeding was disrupted when a door opened and a woman shouted Clinton Tyree’s name. Dick Artemus twisted his neck and saw Lisa June Peterson and Lt. Jim Tile each fastening themselves to one of the ex-governor’s arms, pulling him away—the madman grinning yet submissive—out of the dining room.

Dick Artemus lurched to his feet and tugged up his pants and smoothed his tousled hair. Not a word would be said about this—Lisa June and the trooper could be counted upon for that. No one would ever know! He hurried to the bedroom for a freshly pressed shirt and notified his driver he was ready. And in the car on the way to the Planters Club, Dick Artemus breezily reviewed the notes for his speech, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. It was only later, after leaving the dais to a round of polite applause, that Dick Artemus discovered what Clinton Tyree had done to him. The FDLE agent standing outside the men’s room heard a sob and flung open the door to see the governor of Florida with blood-flecked boxer shorts bunched at his ankles, his milk-white bum thrust toward the mirror. He was appraising himself woefully over one shoulder.

“Sir?” the agent said.

“Go away!” croaked Dick Artemus. “Out!”

But the agent already had seen it. And he could read it, too, even backward in the mirror:

The word
SHAME
in scabbing pink letters across the governor’s bare ass, where it had been meticulously etched with a buzzard beak.

.  .  .

Jim Tile said, “This time you’ve outdone yourself.”

“Jail?” Skink asked.

“Or the nuthouse.”

Lisa June Peterson said, “Are you kidding? Nobody’s going to jail. This never happened.”

They were heading to the hospital in Jim Tile’s patrol car. The trooper and Lisa June sat up front. McGuinn and the ex-governor were curled in two aromatic heaps—one black and one fluorescent orange—on the backseat, in the prisoner cage.

“Imagine if Governor Artemus orders Governor Tyree prosecuted,” Lisa June was saying. “Once the story leaks out, Lord, it’s front-page news all over the country—and not the kind you clip out for the family scrapbook, if you’re Dick Artemus.”

From the backseat: “What’s the big deal? He won’t scar.”

Jim Tile said, “I believe you’re missing the point.”

“Two weeks, his scrawny butt’ll be as good as new. What?” Skink perked up. “Lisa June, are you giggling?”

“No.”

“Yes, you are!”

“Well, it was . . .”

“Funny?” Skink prompted.

“Not what I expected to see, that’s all.” Lisa June Peterson tried to compose herself. “You on top of him. Him with his fanny showing. . . .”

Thinking about the scene, Jim Tile had to chuckle, as well. “When can I go home?” he said.

From the backseat: “Soon as we spring the boy.”

Lisa June addressed both of them. “If anyone asks, here’s what happened today: Governor Richard Artemus held a cordial, uneventful private lunch with former Governor Clinton Tyree. They discussed—let’s see—bass fishing, Florida history, the restructuring of the state Cabinet—and the strenuous job demands of the office of chief executive. The meeting lasted less than an hour, after which former Governor Tyree declined a tour of the refurbished residence, due to a previous commitment to visit a friend in a local hospital. All agreed?”

“Sounds good to me,” Jim Tile said.

“It will sound even better to Governor Artemus. Trust me.”

Skink sat up in the cage. “But what about that bridge?”

Jim Tile said, “Don’t even think about it.”

“Hell, I’m just curious.”

“Your work is done here, Governor.”

“Oh, relax, Lieutenant.”

Lisa June Peterson said, “They’ll reappropriate the bridge funding next week, during the special session. Once that happens, Shearwater is a go.”

Skink sagged forward, hooking sun-bronzed fingers in the steel mesh. “So the veto was bullshit. They lied to the boy.”

“Of course they did. They thought he was going to kill your buddy.” Lisa June nodded toward the dozing dog. “It was extortion, captain. They couldn’t cave in.”

“Plus the bridge is a twenty-eight-million-dollar item.”

“There’s that, yes.”

“And let’s not forget that Governor Pencil Dick is dearly beholden to Shearwater’s developer.”

“Agreed,” Lisa June Peterson said, “but the point is, everything worked out. Mr. Stoat’s dog is safe. Mr. Stoat’s wife is safe. And the young man, Mr. Spree, will get the professional help he needs. . . .”

Skink snorted. “The island, however, is fucked.”

A cheerless silence settled over the occupants of the patrol car. Jim Tile thought: This is precisely what I was afraid of. This was the danger they risked, bringing him out of the swamp on such heartless terms.

The trooper said, “Governor, where will you take the kid?”

“A safe place. Don’t you worry.”

“Until he’s feeling better?”

“Sure.”

“Then what?” Lisa June asked.

“Then he’s free to burn down the goddamn capitol building if he wants. I’m not his father,” Skink groused, “and I’m not his rabbi.” Once again he drew himself caterpillar-like into a ball, resting his shaved dome on the car seat. The Labrador awoke briefly and licked him on the brow.

As Jim Tile wheeled up to the hospital entrance, Lisa June Peterson asked: “You sure about this? He’s OK to travel?”

The trooper explained that Twilly Spree’s gunshot wound was a through-and-through; minor damage to the right lung, two fractured ribs, no major veins or arteries nicked.

“Lucky fella,” Jim Tile said. “In any case, he’s safer with him”—cutting his eyes toward the backseat—“than anyplace else. Somebody wanted the young man dead. Maybe still does.”

“What if those officers upstairs won’t let him out?”

“Miss Peterson, three of those troopers are being evaluated next month for promotions. Guess who’s one of the evaluators?” Jim Tile removed his mirrored sunglasses and folded them into a breast pocket. “I don’t think they’ll raise a fuss if Mr. Spree decides to check himself out.”

From the backseat: “You ever been there?”

“Excuse me, Governor?”

“Jim, I’m talking to Lisa June. Darling, you ever been down to Toad Island?”

“No.”

“You just might like it.”

“I’m sure I would,” she said.

“No, I meant you might like it
the way it is.
Without the fairways and yacht basins and all the touristy crap.”

Lisa June Peterson turned to face him. “I know exactly what you meant, captain.”

Jim Tile parked in the shade and left the back windows cracked, so the dog could get some fresh air. While a nurse changed Twilly Spree’s dressing, the three of them—Skink, Lisa June and Jim Tile—waited outside the hospital room. Jim Tile spoke quietly to the four young troopers posted at the door, then led them down the hall for coffee. Skink flopped cross-legged on the bare floor. Lisa June borrowed a spring-backed chair from the nursing station and sat next to him.

He eyed her with an avuncular amusement. “So, you’re going to stay put here in Tallahassee. Learn the ropes. Be a star.” The ex-governor winked.

“Maybe I’ll write a book about you instead.”

“I enjoy Graham Greene. I’d like to think he would have found me interesting,” Skink mused, “or at least moral.”

“I do,” Lisa June said.

“No, you write a book about Governor Dickless instead—and publish it before the next election. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the kumquats!” Skink’s mandrill howl startled a middle-aged patient wearing a neck brace and rolling an IV rig down the hallway. The man made a wobbly U-turn and steamed back toward the safety of his room.

Lisa June Peterson lowered her voice. “Look, I was thinking. . . .”

“Me, too.” The captain, playfully pinching one of her ankles.

“Not about
that.
”

“Well, you should. It’ll do you good.”

“The new bridge,” Lisa June whispered. “Shearwater.”

“Yeah?”

“The deal’s not sewn up yet. There’s one more meeting.” She told him who would be there. “And Palmer Stoat, too, of course. He set the whole thing up. It’s a hunting trip.”

Skink’s thatched eyebrows hopped. “Where?”

“That’s the problem. They’re going to a private game ranch outside Ocala. You need an invitation to get in.”

“Darling, please.”

“But let’s say you did get in,” Lisa June continued. “I was thinking you could talk to them about Toad Island. Talk to them the way you talked to me about Florida that night by the campfire. Who knows, maybe they’d agree to scale down the project. Leave some free beach and a few trees at least. If you can just get Dick on your side—”

“Oh, Lisa June—”

“Listen! If you can get Dick on your side, the others might go along. He can be incredibly persuasive, believe me. You haven’t seen him at his best.”

“I should hope not.” Skink, toying with his buzzard beaks. “Lisa June, I just whittled a serious insult into the man’s rear end. He ain’t never
ever
gonna be on my side. And you know that.” The captain leaned sideways and smooched one of her kneecaps. “But I sincerely appreciate the information.”