Sick Puppy (24 page)

The plane landed at half-past two. Stoat searched for Desie inside the terminal but she wasn’t there. One of his cell phones rang—Stoat carried three—and he snatched it from a pocket. Durgess was on the line: No luck so far with the rhino, but good news about Robert Clapley’s cheetah! They’d found one in Hamburg, of all places, at a children’s zoo. The cat would arrive within days at the Wilderness Veldt Plantation, where it would be caged, washed and fattened up in advance of the big hunt. Anytime you’re ready! said Durgess, more perky than Stoat had ever heard him. I’ll inform Mr. Clapley, Stoat said, and get back to you.

He walked to the airport parking lot and squinted into the sunlight, not knowing exactly what to look for. A horn honked twice. Stoat turned and saw a white Buick station wagon approaching slowly. A man was driving; no sign of Desie. The car stopped beside Palmer Stoat and the passenger door swung open. Stoat got in. In the backseat lay Boodle, an orange-and-blue sponge football pinned beneath his two front paws. His tail thwapped playfully when he saw Stoat, but he clung to the toy. Stoat reached back and stroked the dog’s head.

“That’s the best you can do?” the driver said.

“He stinks,” said Stoat.

“Damn right he stinks. He spent the morning running cows. Now give him a hug.”

Not in a two-thousand-dollar suit I won’t, thought Stoat. “You’re the one from Swain’s,” he said to the driver. “Where the hell’s my wife?”

The station wagon started moving.

“You hear me?”

“Patience,” said the driver, who looked about twenty years old. He wore a dark blue sweatshirt and loose faded jeans and sunglasses. He had shaggy bleached-out hair, and his skin was as brown as a surfer’s. He drove barefoot.

Palmer Stoat said, “You tried to scare me into thinking you cut up my dog. What kind of sick bastard would do that?”

“The determined kind.”

“Where’d you get the ear and the paw?”

“Not important,” the young man said.

“Where’s Desie?”

“Whew, that cologne you’re wearing. . . .”

“WHERE IS MY WIFE?”

The Roadmaster was heading north, toward Starke, at seventy-five miles an hour. Stoat angrily clenched his hands; moist, soft fists that looked about as menacing as biscuits.

“Where the hell are you taking me? What’s your name?” Stoat was emboldened by the fact that the dognapper appeared to be unarmed. “You’re going to jail, you know that, junior? And the longer you keep my wife and dog, the longer your sorry ass is gonna be locked up.”

The driver said: “That blonde you sometimes travel with, the one with the Gucci bag—does Desie know about her?”

“What!” Stoat, straining to sound indignant but thinking: How in the world does he know about Roberta?

“The one I saw you with at the Lauderdale airport, the one who tickled your tonsils with her tongue.”

Stoat wilted. He felt a thousand years old. “All right. You made your damn point.”

“You hungry?” the driver asked.

He turned into a McDonald’s and ordered chocolate shakes, fries and double cheeseburgers. As he pulled back on the highway, he handed the bag to Palmer Stoat and said, “Help yourself.”

The food smelled glorious. Stoat came to life, and he quickly went to work on the cheeseburgers. Boodle dropped the foam football and sat up to mooch handouts. The driver warned Stoat not to feed the dog anything from the McDonald’s bag.

“Doctor’s orders,” the young man said.

“It’s all your fault he got sick in the first place.” Stoat spoke through bulging, blue-veined, burger-filled cheeks. “You’re the one who yanked all the glass eyeballs out of my trophy heads. That’s what he ate, the big dope—those taxidermy eyes.”

“From the trophy heads. Yes, I know.”

“And did Desie tell you what his surgery cost?”

The driver fiddled with the knobs on the stereo system. Stoat recognized the music; a rock song he’d heard a few times on the radio.

“I tell you what,” the young man said, “these speakers aren’t half-bad.”

“Why’d you steal my dog?” Stoat swiped at his lips with a paper napkin. “Let’s hear it. This ought to be good.” He finished engulfing one double cheeseburger, then wadded the greasy wax wrapper.

The young man’s eyebrows arched, but he didn’t look away from the highway. He said to Stoat: “Don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out.”

“Figured
what
out?”

“How I chose you. How all this rough stuff got started—you honestly don’t know?”

“All I know,” Stoat said with a snort, “is that you’re some kinda goddamn psycho and I did what you wanted and now I’m here to collect my wife and my dog.” He fumbled on the door panel for the window switch.

“Oh brother,” said the driver.

Stoat looked annoyed. “What now?”

The driver groaned. “I don’t believe this.”

“Believe what?” said Palmer Stoat, clueless. Casually he tossed the balled-up cheeseburger wrapper out of the speeding car.

“Believe what?” he asked again, a split second before his brainpain detonated and the world went black as pitch.

19

In Twilly Spree’s next dream he was down in the Everglades and it was raining hawks. He was running again, running the shoreline of Cape Sable, and the birds were falling everywhere, shot from the sky. In the dream Desie was running barefoot beside him. They were snatching up the bloodied hawks from the sugar white sand, hoping to find one still alive; one they could save. McGuinn was in Twilly’s dream, too, being chased in circles by a scrawny three-legged bobcat—it might have been hilarious, except for all the birds hitting the beach like russet feather bombs. In the dream Twilly saw a speck on the horizon, and as he drew closer the speck became the figure of a man on the crest of a dune; a man with a long gun pointed at the sky. Heedlessly Twilly ran on, shouting for the hawk killer to stop. The man lowered his weapon and spun around to see who was coming. He went rigid and raised the barrel again, this time taking aim at Twilly. In the dream Twilly lowered his shoulders and ran as fast as he could toward the hawk killer. He was astonished when he heard Desie coming up the dune behind him, running even faster. Twilly saw the muzzle flash at the instant Desie’s hand touched his shoulder.

Except it wasn’t Desie’s hand, it was his mother’s. Amy Spree gently shook her son awake, saying, “My Lord, Twilly, were you dreaming? When did
this
start?”

Twilly sat up, chilled with sweat. “About a week ago.”

“And what do you dream about?”

“Running on beaches.”

“After all these years! How wonderful.”

“And dead birds,” Twilly said.

“Oh my. You want a drink?”

“No thanks, Mom.”

“Your friend is relaxing out on the deck,” said Amy Spree.

“I’m coming.”

“The man with the pillowcase over his head?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“She says it’s her husband.”

“Correct.”

“Oh, Twilly. What next?”

Amy Spree was a stunning woman of fifty-five. She had flawless white skin and shy sea-green eyes and elegant silver-streaked hair. Twilly found it ironic that in divorcehood his mother had chosen Flagler Beach, given both her aversion to tropical sunlight and her previous attachment to a philandering swine who hawked oceanfront property for a living. But Amy Spree said she was soothed by the Atlantic sunrises (which were too brief to inflict facial wrinkles), and harbored no lingering bitterness toward Little Phil (whom she dismissed as “confused and insecure”). Furthermore, Amy Spree said, the shore was a perfect place to practice her dance and clarinet and yoga, all of which required solitude.

Which her son interrupted once a year, on her birthday.

“I never know what to get you,” Twilly said.

“Nonsense,” his mother clucked. “I got the best present in the world when you knocked on the door.”

They were in the kitchen. Amy Spree was preparing a pitcher of unsweetened iced tea for Twilly, his new lady friend and her husband, who was trussed to a white wicker rocking chair once favored by Twilly’s father.

“How about a dog?” Twilly asked his mother. “Wouldn’t you like a dog?”

“
That
dog?” Amy Spree eyed McGuinn, who had hungrily positioned himself at the refrigerator door. “I don’t think so,” said Amy Spree. “I’m happy with my bonsai trees. But thank you just the same.”

She put on a straw hat as broad as a garbage-can lid. Then she carried a glass of tea outside to Desirata Stoat, on the deck overlooking the ocean. Twilly came out later, dragging Palmer Stoat in the rocking chair. Twilly placed him on the deck, next to Desie. Twilly sat down on a cedar bench with his mother.

Amy Spree said, “I am not by nature a nosy person.”

“It’s all right,” said Desie, “you deserve to know.” She looked questioningly at Twilly, as if to say: Where do we start?

He shrugged. “Mrs. Stoat’s husband is a congenital litterbug, mother. An irredeemable slob and defiler. I can’t seem to teach him any manners.”

Desie cut in: “There’s an island over on the Gulf Coast. My husband’s clients intend to bulldoze it into a golf retirement resort. A pretty little island.”

Twilly’s mother nodded. “I was married to such a man,” she said with a frown. “I was young. I went along.”

An unhappy noise came from Palmer Stoat. The pillowcase puckered in and out at his mouth. Desie put one foot on the chair and began to rock him slowly.

“What’s the matter?” she asked her husband. “You getting thirsty?”

Twilly said, “His gourd hurts. I whacked him pretty hard.”

“For tossing garbage out of the car,” Desie explained to Twilly’s mother.

“Oh dear,” said Amy Spree. “He’s always had trouble controlling his anger. Ever since he was a boy.”

“He’s still a boy,” Desie said fondly.

Amy Spree smiled.

“That’s enough of
that,
” said Twilly. He jerked the pillowcase from Palmer Stoat’s head and peeled the hurricane tape off his mouth. “Say hello to my mom,” Twilly told him.

“Hello,” Stoat mumbled, squinting into the sunlight.

“How are you?” said Amy Spree.

“Shitty.” Stoat’s cheeks were flushed and his lips were gnawed. His left temple featured a knot the size of a plum.

“Mr. Stoat,” said Twilly, “please tell my mother about the bridge.”

Palmer Stoat blinked slowly, like a bullfrog waking out of hibernation. Desie continued to rock him with her foot.

“Tell her how you lied to me about the bridge,” Twilly said, “lied about the governor killing the bridge so the island would be saved. Mother, Mr. Stoat is a close personal friend of Governor Richard Artemus.”

“Really?” said Amy Spree.

Stoat worked up a glower for Twilly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Twilly raised his hands in disgust. “You said the bridge was dead but, lo and behold, what do I encounter this very morning on Toad Island? A survey team, Mother. Measuring for—surprise, surprise!—a new bridge.”

“Uh-oh,” said Amy Spree.

“Without it, Mr. Stoat’s clients can’t build their fancy resort, because they can’t get their cement trucks across the water.”

“Yes, son, I understand.”

McGuinn ambled onto the deck. He sniffed the knots at Palmer Stoat’s wrists, then leisurely poked his nose in his master’s groin.

“Boodle, no!” Stoat bucked in the rocking chair. “Stop, goddammit!”

Amy Spree turned her head, stifling a giggle. On the beach behind the deck were half a dozen young surfers, shirtless, with their boards under their arms. They were staring out morosely at the flat water. Amy Spree thought the scene would make a good picture, photography being her newest hobby. McGuinn trotted down the steps to make friends.

“So what now?” Twilly slapped his palms loudly against his thighs. “That’s the question of the day, Desie. What do I do with this lying, littering shithead of a husband you’ve got?”

Desie looked at Twilly’s mother, who looked at Palmer Stoat. Stoat cleared his throat and said: “Give me another chance.”

“Are you talking to me,” said Twilly, “or your wife?”

“Both.”

“Palmer,” Desie said, “I’m not sure I want to come home.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Stoat huffed impatiently. “What is it you want, Desie?”

“Honestly I don’t know.”

“You want to be Bonnie Parker, is that it? Or maybe Patty Hearst? You want to end up a newspaper headline.”

“I just want—”

“Fine. Then don’t come home,” said Palmer Stoat. “Don’t even bother.”

Amy Spree rose. “Son, I need some help downstairs in the garage.”

“Relax, Mom,” Twilly said. “It’s all right.”

Amy Spree sat down. Desie Stoat took her foot off the chair, and her husband rocked to a stop.

“Do whatever you want,” he snarled at his wife. “Fuck you. Fuck that stupid Labrador retriever. To hell with the both of you.”

Twilly’s mother said: “There’s no need for profanity.”

“Lady, I’m tied to a goddamn chair!”

Desie said, “Oh please. It’s not like you’ve been a model husband the last two years.”

Stoat made a noise like a football going flat. “You’ll be hearing from my lawyers, Desirata. Now: One of you fruitcakes better untie me.” He twisted his neck to get a fix on Twilly Spree. “And with regard to the Toad Island bridge, junior, there’s not a damn thing you or anyone else on God’s green earth can do to stop it. You can have my wife and you can have my dog, but that new bridge is going up whether you like it or not. It’s what we call a foregone conclusion, junior—no matter how many paws and ears and dog balls you send out. So take off these ropes this minute, before I start raising holy hell.”

Never had Desie seen her husband so infuriated. His face was swollen up like an eggplant.

She said, “Palmer, why did you have to lie?”

Before Stout could tee off on her again, Twilly slapped a fresh strip of hurricane tape across his lips. The pillowcase came down over wide hate-filled eyes.

Amy Spree said, “Son, don’t be too rough with the man.”

Twilly hauled the rocking chair indoors while Desie whistled for McGuinn. Later Amy Spree served dinner, broiled shrimp over rice under a homemade tomato-basil sauce. They brought Palmer Stoat to the table but he made clear, with a series of snide-sounding grunts, that he wasn’t particularly hungry.

“There’s plenty more,” said Twilly’s mother, “if you change your mind. And I apologize, kids, for not having wine.”

“Mom gave up drinking,” Twilly explained to Desie.

“But if I’d known you were coming, I would have picked up a bottle of nice merlot,” said Amy Spree.

“We’re just fine. The food is fantastic,” Desie said.

“What about your puppy?”

“He’ll eat later, Mrs. Spree. There’s a bag of chow in the car.”

Dessert was a chocolate cheesecake. Twilly was cutting a second slice when his mother said, “Your father was asking about you.”

“You still talk to him?”

“He calls now and again. Between flings.”

“So how’s waterfront moving out on the West Coast?” Twilly said.

“That’s what I wanted to tell you. He quit the business!”

“I don’t believe that. Quit, or retired?”

“Actually, they took away his real estate license.”

“In California?”

“He didn’t go into all the gory details.”

Twilly was incredulous. “Don’t you have to disembowel somebody to lose your real estate license in California?”

“Son, I couldn’t believe it, either. Know what he’s selling now? Digital home entertainment systems. He mailed me a color brochure but I can’t make sense of it.”

Twilly said, “You know what gets me, Mom? He could’ve quit the business after Big Phil died. All that money—Dad didn’t need to hawk one more lousy foot of beach. He could’ve moved to the Bahamas and gone fishing.”

“No, he could not,” said Amy Spree. “Because it’s in his blood, Twilly. Selling oceanfront is in his blood.”

“Please don’t say that.”

“Excuse me,” Desie interjected, “but Palmer acts like he needs to use the little boy’s room.”

“Again?” Twilly rose irritably. “Jesus, his bladder’s smaller than his conscience.”

Later Amy Spree walked them downstairs, where her son hoisted the rocking chair (with Palmer Stoat, squirming against the ropes) into the station wagon.

She said, “Twilly, what’re you going to do with him? For heaven’s sake, think about this. You’re twenty-six years old.”

“You want to take his picture, Mother? He likes to get his picture made. Isn’t that right, Palmer?”

From under the puckering pillowcase came a snort.

“Polaroids especially,” said Twilly.

Desie blushed. From the rocker came a dejected moan.

Amy Spree said: “Twilly, please don’t do something you’ll come to regret.” Then, turning to Desie: “You stay on his case, all right? He’s got to buckle down and work on that anger.”

Twilly slid behind the wheel, with Desie on the other side and McGuinn hunkered between them, drooling on the dashboard.

“I love you, son,” said Amy Spree. “Here, I wrapped the rest of the cheesecake.”

“I love you, too, Mom. Happy birthday.”

“Thanks for remembering.”

“And I’ll bring back the rocking chair.”

“No hurry.”

“Might be next year,” said Twilly, “maybe sooner.”

“Whenever,” said his mother. “I know you’re busy.”

Word of the governor’s veto somehow reached Switzerland. Robert Clapley was floored when one of the bankers financing Shearwater Island called him up in the middle of the night. “Vot hippen to ze bridge?” All the way from Geneva at two-thirty in the morning—like he’d never heard of international time zones, the icy-blooded bastard.

Yet Clapley was wide-awake, skull abuzz, when the phone rang. All night long he’d been trying to contact Palmer Stoat, as the Barbies were on a bimbo rampage for more rhinoceros powder. Clapley had returned from Tampa and found them locked in the bathroom, a boom box blasting fusion dance music from behind the door. An hour later the two women emerged arm in arm, giggling. Katya’s hair was tinted electric-pink to match her tube top, and from the sun-bronzed cleft between her breasts arose an ornate henna fer-de-lance, fangs bared and dripping venom. By contrast, Tish had dressed up as a man, complete with a costume mustache, in Clapley’s favorite charcoal gray Armani.

He was struck helpless with horror. The women looked vulgar and deviant—anti-Barbies! They announced they were going to a strip club near the airport for amateur night. First prize: a thousand bucks.

“I’ll give you two thousand,” Clapley pleaded, “to stay home with me.”

“You got horn?” Katya, with a cruel wink. “No? Then we go score some.” And merrily they had breezed out the door.

On the telephone, the banker from Geneva was saying: “Ze bridge, Mr. Clapley, vot hippen?”

And over and over Robert Clapley tried to make the stubborn blockhead understand there was no cause for alarm. Honest. Trust me. The governor’s a close personal friend. The veto was nothing but a sly deception. The new bridge is good to go. Shearwater Island is a done fucking deal.

“So relax, Rolf, for God’s sake.” Clapley was fuming. He’d answered the phone only because he thought it might be that fuckweasel Stoat, finally returning his calls, or possibly the Palm Beach County vice squad, with precious Katya and Tish in custody. . . .