Sucker Bet

29

Billy Tiger had given airboat tours in the Everglades since he was a teenager, and had met no resistance when he’d asked the man who managed the marina to lend him a boat for the afternoon.

The man had tried to give him a powerboat with a fan engine, thinking Tiger wanted to raise hell for a few hours, but Tiger had taken a johnboat instead. The fan boats could be heard for miles, while the electric johnboats were not heard at all.

The Micanopys had inhabited Florida for three hundred years, but only since the early 1900s had the tribe lived in the Everglades. This shift had been caused by a pair of ruthless robber barons named J. P. Morgan and Henry Flagler, who had descended upon the state and laid claim to the Micanopy tribal lands—all of it beachfront—then hired soldiers and policemen to drive the Micanopys out.

Tiger piloted the johnboat down a brackish waterway choked by mangroves and rotting willows. His ancestors had done a smart thing coming here. There was so much swamp—over five thousand square miles—that a man could get lost whenever he chose, and stay lost for as long as it suited him.

A small body of land loomed ahead. It was bright green and covered in dahoon holly. Tiger slowed the engine, and the johnboat bumped the ragged shoreline. He splashed his hand in the water to dispel any water moccasins, then cautiously stepped out of the vessel.

His feet began to sink. He was standing on a tree island. The Everglades were home to hundreds of such islands. He heard a sarcastic quacking and glanced at a flock of roseate spoonbills nesting in a tree, their pink plumage and clownish faces a sharp contrast to the swamp’s greens and browns. Pollution from sugar plantations had nearly wiped out the spoonbills, and only recently had politicians attempted to correct the problem.

He took Harry Smooth Stone’s instructions from his pocket and read them again. Then he checked the time. Four o’clock.

To kill time, he counted the spoonbills. A dozen filled the trees, half of them babies. A few years ago, there had been less than five hundred in all of Florida. Seeing such a big family made Tiger happy in a way that he could not put into words.

He sprayed himself with Cutter. It was the strongest insect repellent on the market, yet he was still getting chewed alive. Finally he got in the johnboat and pushed himself away from the shore. With swamp people, there was no accounting for missed appointments. Sometimes they showed up, and sometimes they didn’t.

He headed back the way he’d come. Flies hopscotched across the water, only to disappear beneath the surface. He considered dropping a line, then imagined Smooth Stone sitting in his cell, wondering what the hell had happened to him.

A two-foot bass sprang out of the water. Forgive me, Harry, Tiger thought. Killing the engine, he removed a fishing line from his slicker, then looked over the boat’s edge. Tiny shiners lurked below. Plucking one from the water, he kissed it for luck, then impaled it on the hook and threw it in. The water exploded beside the boat.

Tiger nearly jumped overboard, believing a hungry gator had snuck up on him. Only, what came out of the water was human, but no less dangerous. He watched the familiar figure climb aboard and flop down across from him.

“You scared me, man. What if I had a gun?”

“Then I would have had to take it away from you.”

“Like hell you would,” Tiger said.

His name was Joe Deerslayer, but everyone called him Slash. In and out of trouble his whole life, he’d hidden in the swamps rather than go to prison for robbing a 7-Eleven and shooting the owner in the face. He wore nothing but ratty underwear, his body covered in red sores.

“I’ve got a job for you,” Tiger said.

“Not interested.”

“Smooth Stone sent me.”

Slash helped himself to Tiger’s water bottle. “What’s he want me to do?”

“Pressure a guy.”

A powerfully bad smell was coming off Slash’s body. He shook out his stringy black hair, which fell well past his shoulders, and said, “Who?”

“Name’s Tony Valentine. There’s a woman who works for him. She’s old. Smooth Stone wants you to scare this old woman and make Valentine go home.”

“Where’s that?”

“Palm Harbor. It’s on the west coat, near St. Petersburg.”

“I know where it is. What’s Smooth Stone paying?”

Tiger reached under his seat and removed a bundle of bills wrapped in Saran Wrap. He tossed the bundle to Slash. “Thirty-five hundred. There’s a red Chevy Impala waiting for you in the casino parking lot. The keys are under the mat. In the trunk there are clothes and a map to Valentine’s house. The old woman works there.”

“Make it five,” Slash said.

“Come on. It’s an easy job.”

“Old women bite as hard as anyone else. It’s gonna cost you five.”

Tiger swallowed hard. Five grand was what it cost to have someone killed. He’d seen it in the newspaper a hundred times. Irate spouses or jealous girlfriends would hire hit men to kill their mates. The hit men always charged five grand.

“Harry just wants you to scare her.”

“Don’t tell me what to fucking do,” Slash said.

The swamp grew deathly still, and Tiger heard the sound of his own breathing.

“Put the rest of the money in the trunk of the car,” Slash said, as if the matter were already settled.

“I’ll . . . have to ask Smooth Stone.”

“And a gun. Something small and light.”

“Right.”

“With ammo.”

“Right . . .”

“And give Smooth Stone a message for me.”

“What’s that?”

“Tell him next time, don’t send a boy to do a man’s job.”

Tiger did not know what stung more, the mosquito chewing his face, or the insult. He watched Slash dive over the side of the johnboat and disappear in the brown-black water, then started up the engine and headed back toward civilization.

The town clown’s name was Russell Popjoy. He was a sergeant with the Broward County police, assigned to the Davie area. A week ago, he had paid Ray Hicks a visit and shaken him down for forty-two hundred dollars so Hicks could run his carnival without fear of being harassed or shut down.

Hicks had not expected him to show up at the hospital. But Popjoy had, walking into Mr. Beauregard’s room Saturday night, right as visiting hours were ending. He was an inch shy of being a giant, with bulging weight-lifter muscles and red freckled skin. He stared at Mr. Beauregard strapped to the hospital bed, then at the monitor taking his heartbeat. Then he’d shaken his head.

“Is he—”

“Going to be okay,” Hicks said.

Mr. Beauregard had passed the critical stage the night before. He’d lost a lot of blood, but chimps could do that and still survive, their hearts big and strong.

“I saw him once in Louisiana,” Popjoy said. “I’m from there. Saw him in a pet shop. I was a kid.” The sergeant rotated his hat in his hands, holding back, then said it anyway. “The owner was a crazy old coot. He said, ‘Gimme a dollar and he’ll play a song for you.’ So I gave him a dollar. Then I walked over to his cage.”

Mr. Beauregard’s eyelids fluttered, and he made a gurgling sound. Hicks found the water bottle with the flexible straw and stuck it into his mouth. The chimp took a short drink and fell back asleep.

“He looks just like a kid,” Popjoy said. “But I guess you know that.”

Hicks put the bottle on the table and said that he did.

“Where was I?” Popjoy asked. “Oh, yeah. It was the strangest thing. I stood in front of his cage, and he picked up a ukulele and played an old Cajun song. How Come My Dog Don’t Bark (When You Come Around). I mean, I didn’t say a damn thing.”

“You like this song?”

“It’s my favorite,” Popjoy said. “It was like he read my mind.”

Many people had said this about Mr. Beauregard, and Hicks guessed it was because they weren’t used to being around an animal as smart as them. A nurse appeared and told Popjoy he had to leave.

Hicks walked his visitor into the hall. The sergeant took a notepad from his hip pocket and flipped it open. “I have a lead on the person who shot him. A young boy sitting on the Ferris wheel saw a black limousine pull up to your trailer. A man got out and went inside. When he came out, the boy thought he saw an object in his hand that looked like a gun.”

“A black limousine?”

Popjoy nodded. “The boy didn’t make out the plate, but I was wondering if you might know who owned the vehicle.”

Hicks sure did. It was the punk from New York who’d paid him to rig the games so a drunk Englishman and his hooker could have an hour of fun. He’d kept the punk’s business card, which now resided in his wallet.

And what would Popjoy do with such a piece of information? They couldn’t arrest the punk—not enough evidence. But they could pay him a call and shake him down. Which was why Popjoy had come calling.

“Sorry,” Hicks said.

Popjoy looked disappointed. He shut his notebook and put it away. Then put his hand on Ray Hicks’s shoulder and left it there longer than Hicks would have liked.

“I’m here to help. I want you to remember that.”

“Go to hell,” Hicks said when he was gone.