Double Whammy (14 page)

The crooked developers thought this was an ingenious and foolproof plan, and they were dumbfounded when Clinton Tyree told them to go fuck themselves. The developers had naively contributed large sums to Tyree's gubernatorial campaign, and they could not believe that this was the same man who was now—on a state letterhead! —dismissing them as “submaggots, unfit to suck the sludge off a septic tank.”

The rich developers were further astounded to discover that all their conversations with the governor had been secretly tape-recorded by the chief executive himself. They learned about this when carloads of taciturn FBI agents pulled up to their fancy Brickell Avenue office tower, stormed in with warrants, and arrested the whole gold-chained gang of them. Soon the Internal Revenue Service merrily leapt into the investigation and, within six short months, one of the largest land-development firms in the Southeastern United States went belly-up like a dead mudfish.

It was an exciting and historic moment in Florida history. Newspaper editorials lionized Governor Clint Tyree for his courage and honesty, while network pundits promoted him as the dashing harbinger of a New South.

Of course, the people who really counted—that is, the people with the money and the power—did not view the new governor as a hero. They viewed him as a dangerous pain in the ass. True, every slick Florida politician got up and preached for honest government, but few vaguely understood the concept and even fewer practiced it. Clint Tyree was different; he was trouble. He was sending the wrong message.

With Florida no longer virgin territory, competition was brutal among greedy speculators. The edge went to those with the proper grease and the best connections. In the Sunshine State growth had always depended on graft; anyone who was against corruption was obviously against progress. Something had to be done.

The development interests had two choices: they could wait for Tyree's term to expire and get him voted out of office, or they could deal around him.

Which is what they did. They devoted their full resources and attention to corrupting whoever needed it most, a task accomplished with little resistance. The governor was but one vote on the state cabinet, and it was a simple matter for his political enemies to secure the loyalty of an opposing majority. Money was all it took. Similarly, it was simple (though slightly more expensive) to solidify support in the state houses so that Clinton Tyree's oft-used veto was automatically overridden.

Before long the new governor found himself on the losing side of virtually every important political battle. He discovered that being interviewed by David Brinkley, or getting his picture on the cover of
Time
, meant nothing as long as his colleagues kept voting to surrender every inch of Florida's beachfront to pinky-ringed condominium moguls. With each defeat Clint Tyree grew more saturnine, downcast, and withdrawn. The letters he dictated became so dark and profane that his aides were terrified to send them out under the state seal, and rewrote them surreptitiously. They whispered that the governor was losing too much weight, that his suits weren't always pressed to perfection, that his hair was getting shaggy. Some Republicans even started a rumor that Tyree was suffering from a dreaded sexual disease.

Meanwhile the rich developers who had tried to bribe him finally went to trial, with the governor sitting as the chief witness against them. It was, as they say, a media circus. Clinton Tyree's friends thought he held up about as well as could be expected; his enemies thought he looked glazed and unkempt, like a dope addict on the witness stand.

The trial proved to be a tepid victory. The developers were convicted of bribery and conspiracy, but as punishment all they got was probation. They were family men, the judge explained; churchgoers, too.

By wretched coincidence, the day after the sentencing, the Florida Cabinet voted 6–1 to close down the Sparrow Beach Wildlife Preserve and sell it to the Sparrow Beach Development Corporation for twelve million dollars. The purported reason for the sale was the unfortunate death (from either sexual frustration or old age) of the only remaining Karp's Seagrape sparrow, the species for whom the verdant preserve had first been established. With the last rare bird dead, the cabinet reasoned, why continue to tie up perfectly good waterfront? The lone vote against the land deal belonged to the governor, of course, and only afterward did he discover that the principal shareholder in the Sparrow Beach Development Corporation was none other than his trusted running mate, the lieutenant governor.

The morning after the vote, Governor Clinton Tyree did what no other Florida governor had ever done. He quit.

He didn't tell a soul in Tallahassee what he was doing. He simply walked out of the governor's mansion, got in the back of his limousine, and told his chauffeur to drive.

Six hours later he told the driver to stop. The limo pulled into a bus depot in downtown Orlando, where the governor said good-bye to his driver and told him to get the hell going.

For two days Governor Clinton Tyree was the subject of the most massive manhunt in the history of the state. The FBI, the highway patrol, the marine patrol, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and the National Guard sent out agents, troops, psychics, bloodhounds and helicopters. The governor's chauffeur was polygraphed seven times and, although he always passed, was still regarded as a prime suspect in the disappearance.

The search ended when Clinton Tyree's notarized resignation was delivered to the Capitol. In a short letter released to the press, the ex-governor said he quit the office because of “disturbing moral and philosophical conflicts.” He graciously thanked his friends and supporters, and closed the message by quoting a poignant but seemingly irrelevant passage from a Moody Blues song.

After Clint Tyree's resignation, the slimy business of selling off Florida resumed in the state capital. Those who had been loyal to the young governor began to give interviews suggesting that for two whole years they'd known that he was basically a nut. A few intrepid reporters depleted precious expense accounts trying to track down Clinton Tyree and get the real story, but with no success. The last confirmed sighting was that afternoon when the fugitive governor had vanished from the downtown Orlando bus depot. Using the name Black Leclere, he had purchased a one-way ticket to Fort Lauderdale, but never arrived. Along the way the Greyhound Scenic Cruiser had stopped to refuel at an Exxon station; the driver hadn't noticed that the tall passenger in a blue pinstriped suit who had gotten off to use the men's room had never come back. The Exxon station was located across from a fruit stand on Route 222, four miles outside the town limits of Harney.

Clinton Tyree had selected Harney not only because of its natural beauty—the lake and the ranchlands, the cypresses and the pines—but also because of its profound political retardation. Harney County had the lowest voter registration per capita of any county in Florida. It was one of the few places to be blacklisted by both the Gallup and Lou Harris pollsters, due to the fact that sixty-three percent of those interviewed could not correctly name a vice-president, any vice-president, of the United States. Four out of five Harney citizens had not bothered to cast ballots during the previous gubernatorial election, mainly because the annual bull-semen auction was scheduled the same day.

This was a town where Clinton Tyree was sure he'd never be recognized, where he could build himself a place and mind his own business and call himself Rajneesh or Buzz, or even Skink, and nobody would bother him.

 

Skink waited all day to get rid of the body. Once darkness fell, he took the truck and left R. J. Decker in the shack. Decker didn't ask because he didn't want to know.

Skink was gone for an hour. When he got back, he was regarbed in full fluorescence. He stalked through the screen door and kicked off his Marine boots. His feet were bare. He had two limp squirrels under one arm, fresh roadkills.

“The Armadillo is still there,” he reported.

Immediately Decker guessed what had happened: Skink had hauled the other body out to Morgan Slough. And he probably had hooked it on the same fish stringer.

“I can't stay here,” Decker said.

“Suit yourself. Sheriff cars all over the place. There's a pair of 'em parked out on the Mormon Trail, and they hate it out there, believe me. Could be something's in the wind.”

Decker sat on the bare wooden floor, his back rubbing against the unvarnished planks of a bookcase. He needed sleep, but every time he closed his eyes he saw Ott Pickney's corpse. The images were indelible. Three frames, if he'd had a camera.

First: the crest of the skull breaking the surface, Ott's hair dripping to one side like brown turtle grass.

Then a shot of the bloodless forehead and the wide-open eyes focused somewhere on eternity.

Finally: a full pallid death mask, fastened grotesquely on the stringer with a loop of heavy wire, and suspended from the water by Skink's tremendous arms, visible in the lower-left-hand corner of the frame.

That was how R. J. Decker was doomed to remember Ott Pickney. It was a curse of the photographic eye never to forget.

“You look like you're ready to quit,” Skink said.

“Give me another option.”

“Keep going as if nothing happened. Stay on Dickie Lockhart's ass. There's a bass tournament this weekend—”

“New Orleans.”

“Yeah, well, let's go.”

“You and me?”

“And Mr. Nikon. You got a decent tripod, I hope.”

“Sure,” Decker said. “In the car.”

“And a six-hundred-millimeter, at least.”

“Right.” His trusty NFL lens; it could peer up a quarterback's nostrils.

“So?” Skink said.

“So it's not worth it,” Decker said.

Skink tore off his shower cap and threw it into a corner. He pulled the rubber band out of his ponytail and shook his long hair free.

“I got some supper,” he said. “I'll eat all of it if you're not hungry.”

Decker rubbed his temples. He didn't feel like food. “I can't believe they'd kill somebody over a goddamn fish.”

Skink stood up, holding the dead squirrels by their hind legs. “This thing isn't about fishing.”

“Well, money then,” Decker said.

“That's only part of it. If we quit, we miss the rest. If we quit, we lose Dickie Lockhart, probably forever. They can't touch him on the killings, not yet anyway.”

“I know,” Decker said. There wouldn't be a shred of evidence. Ozzie Rundell would go to the chair before he'd rat on his idol.

Decker asked, “Do you think they know it's us?”

“Depends,” Skink said. “Depends if the other guy in the pickup saw our faces this morning. Also depends if the Armadillo told ‘em about you before he died. If he told 'em who you are, then you've got problems.”

“Me? What about you? It was your gun that waxed the guy.”

“What gun?” Skink said, raising his hands. “What gun you talking about, officer?” He flashed his anchorman smile. “Don't worry about me, Miami. If you've got the urge to worry, worry about setting up some good fish pictures.”

Skink cooked the squirrels on sticks over the outdoor fire. Decker drank a cold beer and felt the night close down over Lake Jesup. They ate in silence; Decker was hungrier than he'd thought. Afterward they each popped open another beer and watched the embers burn down.

“Jim Tile is with us the whole way,” Skink said.

“Is it safe?” Decker asked. “For him, I mean.”

“Not for him, not for us. But Jim Tile is a careful man. So am I. And you—you're catching on.” Skink balanced the beer can on one knee. “There's an Eastern nonstop to New Orleans,” he said, “leaves about noon from Orlando.”

Decker glanced over at him. “What do you think?”

Skink said, “Probably smart if we drive separate.”

Decker nodded. They'll never let him on the plane, he thought, not dressed like that. “Then I guess I'll see you at the airport.”

Skink dumped a tin of water on the last of the coals. “Where you headed tonight?” he asked.

“There's somebody I need to see,” Decker said, “though I'm not sure where she's staying. Actually, I'm not even sure she's still in town. It's Dennis Gault's sister.”

Skink snorted. “She's still in town.” He peeled off his rainsuit. “She's at the Days Inn, least that's where the little gumdrop Vette is parked.”

“Thanks, I can find it. What about the deputies up on the Trail?”

“Long gone,” Skink said. “Shift ended a half-hour ago.”

He walked Decker to the car.

“Be careful with that lady,” Skink said. “If you get the urge to tell her your life story, I understand. Just leave out the part about today.”

“I'm too damn tired,” Decker sighed.

“That's what they all say.”

She was still at the Days Inn. Room 135. When she answered the door she wore a nightshirt. One of those expensive silky tops; it barely came down far enough to cover her pale yellow panties. R. J. Decker noticed the color of her panties when she reached up to get a robe from a hook on the back of the closet door. Decker did a pitiful job of trying not to stare.

Lanie said, “What's in the bag?”

“A change of clothes.”

“You going somewhere?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Where?”

“Up north a ways.”

Lanie sat in the middle of the bed and Decker took a chair. An old James Bond movie was on television.

“Sean Connery was the best,” Lanie remarked. “I've seen this dam thing about twenty times.”