Matters were further complicated by the appearance of an ill-mannered pinhead from U.S. Fish and Wildlife, who had barged into the theme park and demanded follow-up data from the "project manager." Of course there was no such person because there was no project to manage; research consisted basically of making sure that the rodents were still breathing every morning before the gates were opened. With the feds suddenly asking questions, Charles Chelsea had quietly put out an all-points bulletin for a legitimate biologist – a recruiting effort that eventually induced Dr. Will Koocher to come to the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills.

Kingsbury decided not to burden Rachel Lark with the details of the doctor's grisly demise; it was irrelevant to the purpose of his call.

"Forget the money," Kingsbury told her.

"I must be hearing things."

"No, I mean it."

"Then what do you want?"

"More voles."

"You're joking."

"My customers, hell, they go nuts for the damn things. Now I got spin-offs, merchandise – a major warehouse situation, if you follow me."

"Sorry," Rachel Lark said, "it was a one-time deal." She'd pulled off the endangered-species racket on two other occasions – once for a small Midwestern zoo, and once for a disreputable reptile farm in South Carolina. Neither deal made as much money as the mango-vole scam, but neither had wound up in the headlines of the Washington Post, either.

Kingsbury said, "Look, I know there's no more mango voles – "

"Hey, sport, there never were any mango voles."

"So what you're saying, we defrauded the government."

"God, you're quick."

"I'm wondering," said Kingsbury, "those fucking fur-balls I paid for – what were they? Just out of curiosity."

Rachel Lark said, "Give me some credit, Frankie. They were voles. Microtus pitymys. Common pine voles."

"Not endangered?"

"There's billions of the darn things."

It figures, Kingsbury thought. The blue tongues were a neat touch. "So get me some more," he said. "We'll call 'em something else, banana voles or whatever. The name's not important, long as they're cute."

The woman who called herself Rachel Lark said: "Look, I can get you other animals – rare, not endangered – but my advice is to stay away from the feds for a while. You put in for another big grant, it's a swell way to get audited."

Again Kingsbury agreed without objection. "So what else have you got, I mean, in the way of a species?"

"Lizards are your best bet." Rachel Lark stretched on her belly and motioned the masseur, whose real name was Ray, to do her spine.

"Christ on a Harley, who wants goddamn lizards!" Kingsbury cringed at the idea; he had been thinking more along the lines of a panda or a koala bear. "I need something, you know, soft and furry and all that. Something the kiddies'll want to take home."

Rachel Lark explained that the Florida Keys were home to a very limited number of native mammals, and the sudden discovery of a new species (so soon after the mango-vole announcement) would attract more scientific scrutiny than the Amazing Kingdom could withstand.

"You're saying, I take it, forget about pandas."

"Frank, they'd die of heatstroke in about five minutes."

Exasperated, Kingsbury said, "I got problems down here you wouldn't believe." He nearly told her about the blackmailing burglars.

"A new lizard you can get away with," she said, "especially in the tropics."

"Rachel, what'd I just say? Fuck the lizards. I can't market lizards."

Rachel Lark moaned blissfully as the masseur kneaded the muscles of her neck. "My advice," she said into the phone, "is stay away from mammals and birds – it's too risky. Insects are another story. Dozens of species of insects are discovered every year. Grasshoppers, doodlebugs, you name it."

There was a grumpy pause on the other end. Finally, Francis X. Kingsbury said, "Getting back to the lizards. I mean, for the sake of argument..."

"They're very colorful," said the woman who called herself Rachel Lark.

"Ugly is out of the question," Kingsbury stated firmly. "Ugly scares the kiddies."

"Not all reptiles are ugly, Frankie. In fact, some are very beautiful."

"All right," he said. "See what you can do."

The woman who called herself Rachel Lark hung up the phone and closed her eyes. When she awoke, the masseur was gone and the man from Singapore was knocking on the door. In one hand was a small bouquet of yellow roses, and in the other was a tan briefcase holding a large down payment for a shipment of rare albino scorpions. Real ones.

EIGHTEEN

On the morning of July 23, a semi-tractor truck leaving North Key Largo lost its brakes on the Card Sound Bridge. The truck plowed through the tollbooth, jack-knifed and overturned, blocking both lanes of traffic and effectively severing the northern arm of the island from the Florida mainland. The gelatinous contents of the container were strewn for ninety-five yards along the road, and within minutes the milky-blue sky filled with turkey buzzards – hundreds of them, wheeling counterclockwise lower and lower; only the noisy throng of gawkers kept the hungry scavengers from landing on the crash site. The first policeman to arrive was Highway Patrol Trooper Jim Tile, who nearly flipped his Crown Victoria cruiser when he tried to stop on the freshly slickened pavement. The trooper tugged the truck driver from the wreckage and, while splinting the man's arm, demanded to know what godforsaken cargo he'd been hauling.

"A dead whale," moaned the driver, "and that's all I'm saying."

Charles Chelsea was summoned to Francis X. Kingsbury's office at the unholy hour of seven in the morning.

Kingsbury looked as if he hadn't slept since Easter. He asked Chelsea how long it would take to get the TV stations out to the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills.

"Two hours," Chelsea said confidently.

"Do it." Kingsbury blew his nose. "On the horn, now."

"What's the occasion, if I might ask?"

Kingsbury held up five fingers. "Today's the big day. Our five-millionth visitor. Arrange something, a fucking parade, I don't care."

Charles Chelsea felt his stomach yaw. "Five million visitors," he said. "Sir, I didn't realize we'd reached that milestone."

"We haven't." Kingsbury hacked ferociously into a monogrammed handkerchief. "Damn my hay fever, I think it's the mangroves. Every morning my whole head's fulla snot." He pushed a copy of the Wall Street Journal at Chelsea. A column on the front page announced that Walt Disney World was expanding its empire to build a mammoth retail shopping center, one of the largest in the Southeastern United States.

"See, we can't just sit here," Kingsbury said. "Got to come back strong. Big media counterpunch."

Chelsea skimmed the Journal article and laid it on his lap. Tentatively he said, "It's hard to compete with something like this. I mean, it goes so far beyond the realm of a family theme park – "

"Bullshit," said Kingsbury. "The Miami-Lauderdale TV market is – what, three times the size of Orlando. Plus CNN, don't they have a bureau down here?" Kingsbury spun his chair and gazed out the window. "Hell, that new dolphin I bought – can't you work him into the piece? Say he rescued somebody who fell in the tank. A pregnant lady or maybe an orphan. Rescued them from drowning – that's your story! 'Miracle Dolphin Saves Drowning Orphan.' "

"I don't know if that's such a good plan," said Chelsea, though inwardly he had to admit it would have been one helluva headline.

"This celebration, make it for noon," Kingsbury said. "Whoever comes through the turnstiles, strike up the band. But make sure it's a tourist, no goddamn locals. Number five million, okay? In giant letters."