She pulled away and angrily blurted something that the Indian couldn’t hear because of the plane buzzing low. When it was gone, she said, “I thought this was a free country.”

“Why the hell are you here?” the Seminole asked.

“You go first.”

“A guy died on my airboat and I needed somewhere to go. Somewhere with no white people.”

“Is that how come you won’t screw me?” Gillian said. “That’s just as prejudiced as me asking you about alligator wrestlin’. Know what? It’s even worse.”

Sammy Tigertail heard himself say, “My girlfriend’s white.”

Gillian crossed her arms in mock surprise. “No way!”

“I mean my ex-girlfriend.”

“Name, please.”

“Cindy. She’s a crank freak.”

“Ha, you and I do have something in common. We both pick losers,” Gillian said. “Look here, chief. Someday when I’m a gray-haired old lady I can tell my grandkids that I was kidnapped by a real live Indian and held hostage on a mangrove island in the Everglades. And that I taught him how to play the guitar, and he taught me all about gators, and we ate funky cactus berries and counted butterflies and slept in a broken cistern. That’s a pretty great story.”

Sammy Tigertail could not disagree.

“And it’d be even better,” Gillian said, “if there was a steamy romance to tell ’em about. But I guess I could use my imagination-you wouldn’t mind, right? What they call ‘creative license’?”

“Go wild,” said Sammy Tigertail.

Lily Shreave was having a massage when the phone rang. The masseur’s name was Mikko and he claimed to have trained for eleven years in Bali. Lily had found the fanciful lie endearing, given his Sooners tattoos and Oklahoma accent. She pressed a fifty-dollar bill into one of his large oily palms, motioned him out of the room and reached for her cell.

“It’s not happening,” Dealey said on the other end.

“You’re giving up already? But you just got there.”

“They’re inside a damn trailer, Mrs. Shreave. I have no shot.”

Lily got down from the massage table. “You mean like a Winnebago?”

“Not a motor home,” said Dealey, “a mobile home. I’ll never be able to get the angle I need.”

Lily wrapped herself in a towel. “Is she with him? I don’t understand.”

“Let me paint you the picture. I’m sitting in an SUV at a trailer court in some glorified fish camp in the armpit of the Everglades. I can’t even get out of my vehicle because there’s not one but two pitfucking-bull dogs waiting to gnaw my nuts off. Meanwhile your bonehead husband and his fake-Fonda lady friend just carried their bags into a mobile home that looks like it was built when Roosevelt was president and decorated by one of Tarzan’s apes.”

Dealey sounded very discouraged. Lily said, “This doesn’t make sense. Boyd always stays at Marriotts.”

“Mrs. Shreave, there are no Marriotts here. They’re lucky to have running water.”

Lily asked the private investigator if it was possible to peek inside the trailer.

“Negative. Curtains on all the windows,” he reported, “and, like I said, the dogs won’t let me out of the truck anyway. I’m parked a hundred yards down the road.”

“So what’s the plan?” Lily said.

“The plan is for me to drive back to civilization and get an air-conditioned hotel room with a king-sized bed, order up a sirloin steak and watch the fights on HBO. Then, tomorrow, I wake up and catch the first flight back to Dallas. That’s the plan, Mrs. Shreave.”

She sensed that Dealey wasn’t keen on the great outdoors. “You can’t bail on me now. Give it one more day.”

“Sorry. This is above and beyond.”

“How bad can it be? It’s Florida, for God’s sake.”

Dealey snorted. “Right, maybe I’m at Disney World and I just don’t know it. Maybe it’s a fun ride-Trailer Trash of the Caribbean.”

Lily couldn’t imagine why her husband had dragged his mistress to such a place, but she was intrigued. Perhaps it was some grungy swingers’ club he’d dredged up on the Internet.

“You cannot leave yet,” she told Dealey.

“Yeah? Watch me.”

“Suppose I bump the fee to twenty-five.” The moment Lily said it, she knew she’d gone over the edge. This wasn’t about humiliating a wayward husband; this was about getting off.

“What?” Dealey said.

“Twenty-five grand.”

“You’re a sick woman-no offense.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Lily could hear the pit bulls barking in the background. “Boyd and his bimbo have gotta come out of that trailer eventually,” she said to Dealey. “I bet they’ll do it on the beach at sunrise. Throw down a blanket and go at it like animals-that sounds like her, doesn’t it?”

“I’m not sure there is a beach, Mrs. Shreave.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Florida is one big beach.”

Dealey said, “Twenty-four hours. Then I’m outta here.”

“Fair enough. But trust me on the sunrise thing.”

“I’ll be sure to set my alarm,” the investigator said. “You’re not bullshitting about the twenty-five large?”

Lily Shreave smiled on the other end. “The pizza business is good, Mr. Dealey.”

Boyd Shreave wasn’t nearly as slick as Honey Santana had anticipated.

“Would you and Mrs. Shreave care for some fresh-squeezed orange juice?” she asked.

The woman accompanying Boyd Shreave started to say something but he cut her off. “Orange juice would be fine,” he said, “wouldn’t it, Genie?”

Honey knew from her Googling expedition that Shreave’s wife was named Lily. Days earlier, when he’d faxed her the information for the airline reservations, Shreave had listed his wife as Eugenie Fonda, parenthetically explaining that she preferred to use her maiden name. The slithering lie did not surprise Honey. That Shreave would bring a girlfriend only ratified her initial harsh appraisal of his character.

“So, this is the ‘lodge’?” He scanned the interior of the double-wide. “We were expecting something different,” he said.

“Temporary quarters until the new facility is finished,” Honey fibbed sunnily. “We’re building it way up in the treetops, just like they do in Costa Rica.”

Shreave was skeptical. “People give away a free trip to paradise, they don’t usually put you up at a trailer court. Am I right, or what?”

“Well, I think you’ll be pleased.” Honey was stung that neither Shreave nor his companion had commented upon her tropical mural on the outer wall.

“So, when do we hear the big pitch?” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

“For the swamp land you’re supposed to sell us. Royal Gulf Hammocks, remember?” Shreave chuckled sardonically. “This is some four-star operation you’re running.”

“Yes-the Hammocks. Of course,” Honey Santana said. “We’ll talk about all that later.” She’d almost forgotten that she was supposed to be working a land-sales scam.

The woman named Genie spoke up. “Isn’t there a beach around here someplace? Or at least a damn tiki bar?”

“Where we’re going is better than the beach-tomorrow morning we leave for the islands.” Honey smiled. “Excuse me, would you?”

The trailer being trailer-sized, Honey could hear the couple arguing in low tones while she was in the kitchen. She was relieved that Shreave hadn’t pegged her as the voice of Pia Frampton, the fictitious telemarketer who’d offered him the trip. Her Laura Bush drawl seemed to have done the trick.

Although Honey owned an electric juicer, she chose to squeeze the fruit by hand. The exercise was therapeutic, keeping at bay temporarily the two tunes-“Smoke on the Water” and “Rainy Days and Mondays”-that had been colliding unbearably inside her head following the unwise visit to Louis Piejack. Earlier in the evening, before the Texans had arrived, Honey had thought she’d spotted Louis in a dark-colored pickup cruising her street. She wasn’t a hundred percent sure; half the guys in town owned trucks like that.

The woman named Genie materialized in the kitchen, offering to help with the tray. Honey said it wasn’t necessary.