Winder felt wounded. "For God's sake, Nina, I know a little something about writing. This place is plenty quiet."

"There is tension," she said grimly, "and don't deny it."

"Writers thrive on domestic tension. Look at Poe, Hemingway – and Mailer in his younger days, you talk about tense." He hoped Nina would appreciate being included on such an eminent roster, but she didn't. Impatiently he said, "It isn't exactly epic literature, anyway. It's phone porn."

Her expression clouded. "Phone porn? Thanks, Joe."

"Well, Christ, that's what it is."

Coldly she folded her arms and leaned against one of the tall speakers. "It's still writing, and writing is hard work. If I'm going to make a go of it, I need some space. And some security."

"If you're talking about groceries, don't worry. I intend to pull my own weight."

Nina raised her hands in exasperation. "Where can you find another job that pays so much?"

Joe Winder couldn't believe what he was hearing. Why the sudden anxiety? The laying on of guilt? If he'd known he was in for a full-blown argument, he indeed would have put on some pants.

Nina said, "It's not just the money. I need someone reliable, someone who will be here for me."

"Have I ever let you down?"

"No, but you will."

Winder didn't say anything because she was absolutely correct; nothing in his immediate plans would please her.

"I know you," Nina added, in a sad voice. "You aren't going to let go of this thing."

"Probably not."

"Then I think we're definitely heading in different directions. I think you're going to end up in jail, or maybe dead."

"Have some faith," Joe Winder said.

"It's not that easy." Nina stalked to the closet, flung open the door and stared at the clutter. "Where"d you put my suitcase?"

In the mid-1970s, Florida elected a crusading young governor named Clinton Tyree, an ex-football star and Vietnam War veteran. At six feet six, he was the tallest chief executive in the history of the state. In all likelihood he was also the most honest. When a ravenous and politically connected land-development company attempted to bribe Clinton Tyree, he tape-recorded their offers, turned the evidence over to the FBI and volunteered to testify at the trial. By taking a public stand against such omnipotent forces, Clinton Tyree became something of a folk hero in the Sunshine State and beyond. The faint scent of integrity attracted the national media, which roared into Florida and anointed the young governor a star of the new political vanguard.

It was, unfortunately, a vanguard of one. Clinton Tyree spoke with a blistering candor that terrified his fellow politicians. While others reveled in Florida's boom times, Clinton Tyree warned that the state was on the brink of an environmental cataclysm. The Everglades were drying up, the coral reefs were dying, Lake Okeechobee was choking on man-made poisons and the bluegills were loaded with mercury. While other officeholders touted Florida as a tropical dreamland, the governor called it a toxic dump with palm trees. On a popular call-in radio show, he asked visitors to stay away for a couple of years. He spoke not of managing the state's breakneck growth, but of halting it altogether. This, he declared, was the only way to save the place.

The day Clinton Tyree got his picture on the cover of a national newsmagazine, some of the most powerful special interests in Florida – bankers, builders, highway contractors, sugar barons, phosphate-mining executives – congealed in an informal conspiracy to thwart the new governor's reforms by stepping around him, as if he were a small lump of dogshit on an otherwise luxuriant carpet.

Bypassing Clinton Tyree was relatively easy to do; all it took was money. In a matter of months, everyone who could be compromised, intimidated or bought off was. The governor found himself isolated from even his own political party, which had no stake in his radical bluster because it was alienating all the big campaign contributors. Save Florida? Why? And from what? The support that Clinton Tyree enjoyed among voters didn't help him one bit in the back rooms of Tallahassee; every bill he wanted passed got gutted, buried or rebuffed. The fact that he was popular with the media didn't deter his enemies; it merely softened their strategy. Rather than attack the governor's agenda, they did something worse – they ignored it. Only the most gentlemanly words were publicly spoken about young Clint, the handsome war hero, and about his idealism and courage to speak out. Any reporter who came to town could fill two or three notebooks with admiring quotes – so many (and so effusive) that someone new to the state might have assumed that Clinton Tyree had already died, which he had, in a way.

On the morning the Florida Cabinet decided to shut down a coastal wildlife preserve and sell it dirt cheap to a powerful land-sales firm, the lone dissenting vote trudged from the Capitol Building in disgust and vanished from the political landscape in the back of a limousine.

At first authorities presumed that the governor was the victim of a kidnapping or other foul play. A nationwide manhunt was suspended only after a notarized resignation letter was analyzed by the FBI and found to be authentic. It was true; the crazy bastard had up and quit.

Journalists, authors and screenwriters flocked to Florida with hopes of securing exclusive rights to the renegade governor's story, but none could find him. Consequently, nothing was written that even bordered on the truth.

Which was this: Clinton Tyree now went by the name of Skink, and lived in those steamy clawing places where he was least likely to be bothered by human life-forms. For fifteen years the governor had been submerged in an expatriation that was deliberately remote and anonymous, if not entirely tranquil.

Joe Winder wanted to talk about what happened in Tallahassee. "I read all the stories," he said. "I went back and looked up the microfiche."

"Then you know all there is to know." Skink was on his haunches, poking the embers with a stick. Winder refused to look at what was frying in the pan.

He said, "All this time and they never found you."

"They quit searching," Skink said. A hot ash caught in a wisp of his beard. He snuffed it with two fingers. "I don't normally eat soft-shell turtle," he allowed.

"Me neither," said Joe Winder.

"The flavor makes up for the texture."

"I bet." Winder knelt on the other side of the fire.

Out of the blue Skink said, "Your old man wasn't a bad guy, but he was in a bad business."

Winder heard himself agree. "He never understood what was so wrong about it. Or why I was so goddamn mad. He died not having a clue."

Skink lifted the turtle by the tail and stuck a fork in it. "Ten more minutes," he said, "at least."

It wasn't easy trying to talk with him this way, but Winder wouldn't give up: "It's been an interesting day. In the space of two hours I lost my job and my girlfriend."

"Christ, you sound like Dobie Gillis."

"The job was shit, I admit. But I was hoping Nina would stay strong. She's one in a million."

"Love," said Skink, "it's just a kiss away."

Dejectedly, Winder thought: I'm wasting my time. The man couldn't care less. "I came to ask about a plan," Winder said. "I've been racking my brain."

"Come on, I want to show you something." Skink rose slowly and stretched, and the blaze-orange rainsuit made a crackling noise. He pulled the shower cap tight on his skull and, in high steps, marched off through the trees. To the west, the sky boiled with fierce purple thunderheads.

"Keep it moving," Skink advised, over his shoulder.

Joe Winder followed him to the same dumpsite where the corpse of Spearmint Breath had been hidden. When they walked past the junker Cadillac, Winder noted that the trunk was open, and empty. He didn't ask about the body. He didn't want to know.