None of this would be laid out explicitly for Palmer Stoat, because it wasn't necessary. He didn't need or want the sticky details. He assumed that somebody near and dear to Willie Vasquez-Washington stood to profit from the construction of a new $9 million community center, and he would have been flabbergasted to learn otherwise. Pork was the essential nutrient of politics. Somebody alwaysmade money, even from the most noble-sounding of tax-supported endeavors. Willie Vasquez-Washington and his pals would get their new community center, and the governor and his pals would get their new bridge to Shearwater Island. A slam dunk, Palmer Stoat believed. He would arrange for Willie's project to be inserted into the next draft of the Senate budget, and from there it would easily pass out of conference committee and go to the governor's desk. And, his private concern for the Shearwater development notwithstanding, Governor Dick Artemus would never in a million years veto the funding for a community center in a poor minority neighborhood, particularly when the elected representative from that district could claim – as Willie Vasquez-Washington had at various times – to be part Afro-American, part Hispanic, part Haitian, part Chinese, and even part Miccosukee. Nobody ever pressed Willie for documentation of his richly textured heritage. Nobody wanted to be the one to ask.
"I'll fix everything tomorrow," Stoat assured Willie Vasquez-Washington. "Listen, I'm kind of late for a meeting at the capitol."
"What're you talkin' about, 'late'? We got eight holes to play." Willie was gesticulating with a three iron. "You can't quit in the middle of a fairway. Specially when I'm down twenty-six bucks!"
"Keep the money, Willie, and the cart, too. I'll walk back." Stoat hung his golf bag over one shoulder and took a beer from the cooler. He gave a genial but firm wave to the vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, then began the trudge to the clubhouse.
"Hey, Palmer! One more thing!" Willie Vasquez-Washington called out.
Stoat turned and cupped a hand to his ear. Willie motioned him closer. Stoat cursed sharply under his breath and walked back.
"It's about the name," said Willie, dropping his voice.
"What about it?"
"Didn't you see the name? In the House budget item."
Palmer Stoat said, "I don't read the House budget word for word, Willie. I don't read the Miami phone book word for word, either. So help me out here, OK?"
"The name should be the same in the Senate version. That's all I'm saying."
Stoat had an urge to snatch Willie's three iron and wrap it around his blotched sweaty neck. "What name," he said thinly, "would you like me to put in the Senate bill?"
"The Willie Vasquez-Washington Community Outreach Center."
"Done," said Stoat. Once again he turned for the clubhouse.
"Shouldn't you maybe write it down?"
"No, I'll remember." Stoat thinking: Community OutreachCenter? Willie's not reaching out, he's just reaching.
"Hey, Palmer, what about your new bridge?"
"I'll fax you the draft language. And it's not mybridge." Stoat was moving away briskly now; long purposeful strides.
"What I meant, is it gonna be named after somebody in particular?" Willie called after him. "You want, I could name it after the governor. Or maybe even you!"
"No thanks!" Palmer Stoat shouted pleasantly, but he kept his back to the man and continued walking. "Maggot," he grumbled. "Another greedy little maggot on the make."
The human population of Toad Island was 217 and in decline. Repeated efforts had been made to develop the place, and many of its remaining inhabitants were casualties of those doomed enterprises. The unofficial mayor was Nils Fishback, former landscape architect of an ambitious project that had promised three high-rise beachfront condominiums, a total of 660 units, called the Towers of Tarpon Island. (Everyone who sought to develop Toad Island renamed it as the first order of business. In addition to Tarpon Island, it had been incorporated fleetingly as Snook Island, Dolphin Island, Blue Heron Island, White Heron Island, Little Spoonbill Island, Big Spoonbill Island, Sandpiper Key, Sandpiper Cay, Sandpiper Isle and Sandpiper Shoals. The circumstances of failure varied from one busted scheme to the next, but a cheerlessly detailed history was available for scrutiny in the bankruptcy files of the federal courthouse at Gainesville.)
Resistance to the latest Toad Island makeover came from a small core of embittered landholders masquerading as environmentalists. In protest they had begun circulating an impassioned, Thoreau-quoting petition, the true purpose of which was not to protect pristine shores from despoliation but to extort more money from the builders. Among the private-property owners it was strongly felt that Robert Clapley was being stingy about buying them out, and that he could easily afford to overpay for their property, just as previous developers had overpaid previous Toad Island inhabitants. The petition strategy had worked well before, stirring up legitimate conservation organizations and luring big-city editorial writers and columnists to Toad Island's cause. Lacerated by headlines, the developers usually caved in and doubled their offers. There was no reason to believe Clapley wouldn't do the same, to expedite groundbreaking on his luxury resort community.
Fame and seniority handed Nils Fishback the lead role in the anti-Shearwater Island petition drive. He'd bought thirty-three lots there, having invested his life savings – unwisely, it had turned out – during the euphoric first gush of hype for what was then Tarpon Island. It had been Fishback's fantasy to escape Miami and retire to a placid Gulf Coast paradise, surrounded by water. He planned to keep four of the most scenic lots and, using his landscaping earnings from the high-rise project, build a grand plantation-style estate house for himself and his wife. Unfortunately for the Fishbacks, the Towers of Tarpon Island went belly-up shortly after the first slab was poured, due to the unexpected incarceration of its principal backers, two young gentlemen cousins from Barranquilla. At that point, Fishback had decorated only the sixty-by-sixty-foot parcel upon which the Towers of Tarpon Island sales kiosk had been assembled – an admittedly modest landscaping chore, but one for which Nils Fishback nonetheless expected compensation. He was not paid, nor were any of the other subcontractors. Worse: After eight years and three more failed Toad Island ventures, Fishback remained stuck with seventeen barren lots of the original thirty-three. His dream home had never advanced beyond blueprints; Fishback lived alone in the abandoned Tarpon Island sales hut, one of the few company assets in which the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration showed no interest.
Fishback's wife long ago had given up hope and bolted for the mainland, leaving him with an unhealthy amount of solitude and free time. He went through a stretch of hard drinking, during which he regularly neglected to shave, bathe, floss or change clothes. He commonly passed out for days on the beach, and his skin became as brown and crinkled as a walnut. One morning, while drunkenly urinating off the old wooden bridge, Nils Fishback was approached by an impressionable young feature writer for a St. Petersburg newspaper. The following week, a long story appeared under a headline christening him "The Mayor of Toad Island." Although Fishback could not recall giving the interview, or any of the wild lies he told, he embraced his colorful new title with zest. He grew out his beard and bleached it snowy white, and took to going shirtless and barefoot and sporting bright bandannas. Deftly, Fishback re-created himself as a crusty and reclusive defender of Nature who had settled on the island purely for its grandeur, not to make a real estate killing. He happily posed for photographers, pretending to smooch one of the tiny striped oak toads that had given the place its name. Fishback was always good for a wistful quote or bittersweet adage about the demise of old Florida. For that reason he had been sought out over the years by the Washington Post, Newsweek,CNBC and the Turner networks, not to mention local media outlets. In this manner, he had evolved into a regional celebrity eccentric.