Skink's eyebrows arched. "FedEx? That could run into some money, depending on the size of the animal."

"It's a Labrador, I'm told." Jim Tile reached for his friend's canteen and took a swig of water. "The point is, Governor Artemus is keen on getting this bridge built – "

"Like I care – "

" – and he wants this disturbed young fellow tracked down and apprehended at your earliest convenience. Please don't look at me that way."

Skink said, "I'm no damn bounty hunter."

"I'm aware of that."

"And, furthermore, I wouldn't know Dick Artemus from an elephant hemorrhoid. I don't give two shits about him and I don't give two shits about his bridge, though I do feel badly about the dismembered canine. Now" – Skink, boosting himself off the hood of the race car – "you may return to Tallahassee, my large Negro friend, and advise the governor to go fuck himself, repeatedly and without lubricants, at my behest."

"Not so fast." The trooper reached under his shirt for the brown envelope, damp with sweat. "He told me to give this to you. He thought it might change your mind. I'm afraid he's right."

"What the hell is it?"

"See for yourself."

"You peeked?"

"Certainly," said Jim Tile.

Inside the envelope was a single piece of paper, to which The Honorable Richard Artemus had been wise enough not to affix his name. The man known as Skink read the paper twice, silently. He looked up and said, "The bastard might be bluffing."

"He might be."

"On the other hand ... " Skink turned, and for several moments he gazed off through the mangroves, toward the sounds of the waves on the coral. "Goddammit, Jim."

"Yeah."

"I don't see another way but to do this thing."

"Not one you could live with, I agree."

"So now what?"

"Take me back to wherever the hell I parked that little boat. I'll go up to Ocean Reef and make some calls. Then we'll meet up tonight outside the Last Chance, say ten o'clock."

"All right." For once Skink sounded old and worn-out. He slung the AK-47 over his shoulder and adjusted his shower cap.

Jim Tile said, "I got a feeling you'll get another uninvited guest today. A fat-assed Cracker rent-a-badge – Gale would be his name. He'll be lost and thirsty and chewed up, and he'll be screaming bloody murder about some crazy nigger cop ditching him on Steamboat Creek. Otherwise he's mostly harmless."

"I'll show him the way to the road."

"I'd appreciate that, Governor."

On the trek out, the two men came across a full-grown crocodile with a blue heron clamped in its jaws. The beast lay in the reeds on the edge of a brackish pond, its massive corrugated tail blocking Skink's footpath. He stopped to watch, motioning for the trooper to do the same. The idea of using their guns would not have occurred to either man. Respectfully they waited while the reptile, spraying feathers, gulped down the magnificent stilt-legged bird.

"A sad sight," whispered Skink, "but also a beautiful one. Because you and I and the six billion other selfish members of our species didn't interfere."

"Honestly, I wouldn't dream of it."

Jim Tile was relieved when the crocodile skidded off the muddy bank and into the lake. Twenty minutes later the two men reached the johnboat. Skink held it steady while the trooper climbed in. The motor was cold and didn't crank until the fifth pull. Skink eased the bow away from the mangroves and gave a light push.

"See you tonight," he said.

"Wait, there's one more thing," said Jim Tile. The engine coughed and stopped. The boat began to drift, slowly.

Skink said, "Tell me later, Jim."

"No, I need to tell you now. Artemus says somebody else is out hunting for this boy. Somebody bad."

"Imagine that."

"Well, you need to know." The trooper waved. "Ten o'clock sharp?"

Skink nodded heavily. "With bells on." He bent over and plucked the Schweppes can out of the roots. He tossed it into the John-boat, where it clattered against the others.

The trooper chuckled. "Nice shot." He jerked the starter cord and the outboard motor hiccuped to life.

Skink stood on the shore, twirling his twin buzzard beaks. "Jim, I'm sorry. I truly am."

"For what, Governor?"

"For whatever's coming," he said. "I'm sorry in advance." Then he turned and splashed into the trees.

15

As agreed, Governor Dick Artemus vetoed from the state budget all $27.7 million set aside for "the Toad Island-Shearwater bridge and highway-improvement project." Other funds blocked by the governor included $17.5 million for the construction and promotion of a Southern Bowler's Hall of Fame in Zolfo Springs; $14.2 million for the "agronomic testing" of a technique to genetically remove the navel-like aperture from navel oranges; $2.6 million to rebuild Aqua Quake, a simulated tidal-wave attraction owned by the uncle of a state senator, and destroyed in a fire of dubious origin; and $375,000 to commence a captive breeding program for the endangered rose-bellied salamander, of which only seven specimens (all males) were known to survive.

In all, Dick Artemus used a line-item veto to eliminate more than $75 million in boondoggles. Except for the Toad Island bridge, all had been proposed by Democrats. Among the items notvetoed by the governor were numerous frivolities initiated by his fellow Republicans, including: $24.2 million to redesign a private golf course in Sarasota, ostensibly to attract a PGA tournament but in truth to spruce up the back nine for the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, who owned three prime lots along the fourteenth fairway; $8.4 million for the purchase of an abandoned South Dade tomato farm liberally appraised at $561,000, purportedly to expand the crucial buffer around Everglades National Park, but actually to enrich the absentee owners of the property, who had contributed magnanimously to the state Republican Committee; $19.1 million to pave and widen to six lanes a gravel road leading to a 312-acre cow pasture in Collier County, said pasture being the as-yet-unannounced future site of a mammoth outlet mall, its silent developer partners including the wife, sister-in-law and niece of the Republican Speaker of the House.

None of the pet projects overlooked by Governor Dick Artemus made the newspapers, but the vetos did. Desie found the list in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel,beneath the following headline:

GOVERNOR AXES $75 MILLION FROM BUDGET

DECLARES WAR ON POLITICAL "PORK"

Desie read the story aloud to Twilly Spree in the truck.

"Be happy," she told him. "You did it. The bridge is history."

Twilly said, "We'll see." He held one hand on the steering wheel and one hand out the window of the pickup, cupping air. He nodded when Desie asked if he was still thinking about the dream.

She said, "You know what a psychologist would say? A psychologist would say you had a breakthrough."

"Anything's possible." Twilly didn't seem unhappy or upset; only absorbed.

Desie said, "Do you remember asking me to stay?"

"Yes."

"Why did you?"

"Because I was scared."

"Of what – more dreams?"

Twilly smiled. "No, not dreams." He adjusted the rearview to check on McGuinn, riding in the bed of the truck. "You think he's OK back there?"

"Oh, he's loving life," Desie said.

"I think he ought to be riding with us."

"Twilly, he's in heaven."

"But what if it starts to rain – "

"He's a Labrador!"

"But he's been sick. He shouldn't be out in the weather."

Twilly parked on the shoulder and brought McGuinn into the cab, between him and Desie. It proved to be a cramped arrangement, made worse by an onset of canine flatulence.

"From the dog food," Desie explained. "Liver-flavored is the worst."