Predator

20

The Seminole belongs to a beat-up white pickup truck filled with ears of corn, parked some distance from the gas pumps. Hog has been watching him for a while.

“Some motherfucker took my fucking wallet, my cell phone, I think maybe when I was in the fucking shower,” the man is saying on the pay phone, standing with his back to the CITGO station and all the eighteen-wheelers rumbling in and out.

Hog doesn’t show his amusement as he listens to the man rant and rave about overnighting again, complaining and cursing because he’ll have to sleep in the cab of his truck, has no phone, no money for a motel. He doesn’t even have money for a shower, and anyway, a shower has gone up to five bucks, and that’s a lot to pay for a shower when nothing comes with it, not even soap. Some of the men double up and get a discount, disappearing behind an unpainted privacy fence on the west side of the CITGO food mart, piling their clothes and shoes on a bench inside the fence before stepping into a tiny concrete space dimly lit with a single showerhead and a big, rusty drain in the middle of the floor.

It is always wet inside the shower. The shower head always drips, and the water handles screech. The men carry in their own soap, shampoo, toothbrushes and toothpaste, usually in plastic bags. They bring their own towels. Hog has never showered in there, but he’s looked at the men’s clothes, figuring out what might be in the pockets. Money. Cell phones. Sometimes drugs. Women shower in a similar arrangement on the east side of the food mart. They never go in two at a time, no matter the discount, and are in a nervous hurry when they shower, shamed by their nakedness and terrified that someone will walk in on them, that a man will, a big, powerful man who can do what he wants.

Hog dials the 800 number on the green card he keeps folded in his back pocket, a rectangular card maybe eight inches long with a large hole and a slit in one end so it can be attached to a door handle. Printed on the card is information and a cartoon of an animated citrus fruit wearing a tropical shirt and sunglasses. He is doing God’s will. He is the Hand of God doing God’s work. God has an IQ of a hundred and fifty.

“Thank you for calling the Citrus Canker Eradication Program,” the familiar recording says. “Your call may be monitored for quality.”

The canned female voice goes on to say that if he is calling to report damage inPalm Beach, Dade orBrowardCountiesorMonroeto please dial the following number. He watches the Seminole climb into his pickup truck, and his red-plaid shirt reminds him of a lumberjack, the carved one by the front door of The Christmas Shop. He dials the number the recorded voice gave him.

“Department of Agriculture,” a woman answers.

“I need to speak to a citrus inspector, please,” he says as he stares at the Seminole and thinks about alligator wrestling.

“What may I help you with?”

“Are you an inspector?” he asks as he thinks of the alligator he saw about an hour ago on the bank of the narrow canal that runs along South 27.

He took it as a good sign. The gator was at least five feet long and very dark and dry, and not interested in the big lumber trucks rumbling by. He would have pulled over if there had been any place to do it. He would have watched the gator, studied the way it fearlessly handles life, quiet and calm but poised to flash into the water or grab its unsuspecting prey and drag it down to the bottom of the canal, where it would drown and rot and be eaten. He would have watched the gator for a long time, but he couldn’t safely get off the highway, and he is on a mission.

“Do you have something to report?” the woman’s voice is asking over the line.

“I work for a lawn service and happened to notice citrus canker in a yard about a block from where I was cutting the grass yesterday.”

“Can you give me the address?”

He gives her an address in theWestLakeParkarea.

“May I have your name?”

“I’d rather report this anonymously. I could get in trouble with my boss.”

“All right. I’d like to ask you a few questions. Did you actually enter this yard where you think you spotted the canker?”

“It’s an open yard, so I walked in because there are a lot of really nice trees and hedges and a lot of grass, and I was thinking maybe I could do some work there if they needed anyone. Then I noticed the suspicious-looking leaves. Several of the trees have tiny lesions on their leaves.”

“Did you notice a watery-looking margin around any of these lesions?”

“It’s my impression these trees were recently infected, which is probably why your routine inspections have missed them. What worries me is the yards on either side. They have citrus that in my estimation are less than nineteen hundred feet from the infected ones, meaning they’re probably infected, too, and the citrus in other yards beyond that in my estimation are also less than nineteen hundred feet away. And on and on throughout the neighborhood. So you can understand my concern.”

“What makes you think our routine inspections have missed the properties you’re mentioning?”

“Nothing to indicate you’ve been there. I’ve been working with citrus trees down here for a long time, working with professional lawn services most of my life. I’ve seen the worst of the worst, entire orchards that had to be burned. People wiped out.”

“Did you notice any lesions on any of the fruit?”

“As I’ve been explaining, it looks like the canker’s in the early stages, very early stages. I’ve seen entire orchards burned because of the canker. People’s lives ruined.”

“When you walked into the yard where you think you saw citrus canker, did you disinfect after you left?” she asks, and he doesn’t like her tone.

He doesn’t like her. She’s stupid and tyrannical.

“Of course I deconned. I’ve been in the lawn-care business for a long time. I always spray myself and my tools with GX-1027, according to regulation. I know all about what happens. I’ve seen entire commercial orchards destroyed, burned up and abandoned. People ruined.”

“Excuse me…”

“Very bad things happen.”

“Excuse me…”

“People need to take the canker seriously,” Hog says.

“What’s the registration number for your vehicle, the one you use for your lawn service? I’m assuming you have a yellow-and-black regulatory sticker on the left side of the windshield? I need that number.”

“My number’s irrelevant,” he says to the inspector, who thinks she’s so much more important and powerful than he. “The vehicle belongs to my boss and I’ll get in trouble if he knows I made this call. If people find out his lawn service reported citrus canker that’s probably going to result in every citrus tree in the neighborhood being eradicated, what do you think will happen to our lawn-care business?”

“I understand, sir. But it’s important I have your decal number for our records. And I really would like a way to contact you, if necessary.”

“No,” he says. “I’ll get fired.”