The governor savored his bourbon. He winked and said: "Whaddya got for me?"

Lisa June thought: Great, he's half-trashed. "Two things. About this special session – before we send out the press release, you should know that Willie Vasquez-Washington is pitching a conniption. He says he doesn't want to fly back to Tallahassee next week, doesn't want his vacation interrupted. He says he's going to make himself a royal pain in the ass if you drag the House and Senate back into session – "

"Those his words?" Dick Artemus grimaced. " 'Royal pain in the ass.' But you told him this was for schools, right? For the education budget."

Lisa June Peterson patiently explained to the bleary governor that Willie Vasquez-Washington was no fool; that he'd quickly figured out the true purpose for the special legislative session., namely to revive the Toad Island bridge project on behalf of the governor's buddies –

"Hell, they aren't my buddies!" Dick Artemus spluttered. "They aren't my pals, they aren't my partners. They're just some solid business folks who contributed to the campaign. Goddamn that Willie, he ain't no saint himself ... "

Lisa June Peterson informed her boss that Willie Vasquez-Washington didn't know (or care) why the governor had vetoed the bridge appropriation in the first place, but he promised to make the governor suffer dearly for screwing up his travel plans.

"He's going skiing in Banff," Lisa June reported. "Taking the whole family."

Dick Artemus sniffed. "Who's payin' for that?"

"I can find out."

"Naw. Hell." The governor puffed his cheeks in disgust. "Y'know, I never had to deal with shit like this in Toyota Land. What else, Lisa June? Let's have it."

"Clinton Tyree came to see you the other night, when you were in Orlando."

Dick Artemus straightened in the chair. "Damn. What'd he want? What'd he say?"

"He said he'll do what you asked him to – "

"Fannnnn-tastic!"

" – but he'll come back to Tallahassee and murder you if anything happens to his brother Doyle. Murder you slowly, he asked me to emphasize."

"Oh, for God's sake." The governor forced out a chuckle.

Lisa June said, "He mentioned the following items: a pitchfork, handcuffs, a fifty-five-gallon drum of lye and a coral snake."

"He's a nut," the governor said.

"He's also serious."

"Well, don't worry, 'cause nuthin's gonna happen to brother Doyle. For God's sake." Dick Artemus groped distractedly for the bourbon bottle. "Poor Lisa June, you're probably wonderin' what the hell you got yourself into with this crazy job. You can't figger out what the heck's goin' on."

Lisa June Peterson said, "I know what's going on. He showed me the letter you wrote."

"What letter!" Dick Artemus protested. Then, sheepishly: "Ok, scratch that. Yeah, I wrote it. See, sometimes ... "

He gazed with a drowsy bemusement into his glass.

Lisa June said, "Sometimes what?"

"Sometimes in this world you gotta do things that aren't so nice."

"For the sake of a golf course."

"Don't get me started, darling. It's a lot more complicated than that." The governor raised his face to offer a paternal smile. "There's a natural order to consider. A certain way things work. You know that, Lisa June. That's how it's always been. You can't change it and I can't change it and some crazy old homicidal hermit – Skink, isn't that what he calls himself? – well, he damn sure can't change it, neither."

Lisa June Peterson stood up, smoothing her skirt. "Thanks for the pep talk, Governor."

"Aw, don't get sulky on me. Sit down, now. Tell me what he looked like. Tell me what happened, I'm dyin' to hear."

But even if Dick Artemus had been sober, Lisa June couldn't have brought herself to share what had happened at the campfire – that the ex-governor had kept her up all night with a fevered monologue; that he had told her true stories of old Florida, that he had ranted and incanted and bellowed at the stars, stomping back and forth, weeping from one eye while the other smoldered as red as a coal; that he had painted teardrops on his bare scalp with fox blood; that he had torn his queer checkered kilt while scrambling up a tree, and that she'd put it back together with three safety pins that she'd found in a corner of her purse; that he'd kissed her, and she'd kissed him back.

Lisa June Peterson couldn't have brought herself to tell her boss that she'd left Clinton Tyree snoring naked and sweaty in the woods a mere ten miles from the capitol, or that she'd rushed home with the intention of putting it all down on paper – everything he'd said and done, and said he'ddone – saving it for the book she planned to write. Because when she got home to her apartment, showered, fixed a cup of hot tea and sat down with a legal pad, she could not put down a word. Not one.

"Nothing much happened," Lisa June Peterson told the governor.

Dick Artemus rocked forward and planted his elbows on his desk. "Well, what does he look like? He's a big fucker, according to the files."

"He's big," Lisa June confirmed.

"Taller'n me?"

"He looks old," Lisa June said.

"He is old. What else?"

"And sad."

"But he's still freaky, I bet."

"I've seen freakier," said Lisa June.

"Aw, you're pissed at me. Don't be like this." Dick Artemus held out his arms imploringly. "I wasn't really gonna evict the man's brother from that lighthouse, Lisa June. You honestly think I'd do something as shitty as that?"

"The letter was enough."

"Oh, for God's sake." The governor grabbed his bourbon and leaned back, balancing the glass on his lap. "All I want him to do is find that crazy kid with the dog. That's all."

"Oh, he'll find him," Lisa June Peterson said. "Now, how do you want to deal with the Honorable Representative Vasquez-Washington?"

"That fucking Willie." Dick Artemus hacked out a bitter laugh. "You know what to do, Lisa June. Call Palmer Stoat. Get him to make things right."

"Yes, sir."

"Hey. What happened to your knee?" The governor, craning his neck for a better angle.

"Just a scrape." Lisa June thinking: I knew I should've worn hose today, Dick Artemus being an incorrigible ogler of legs.

"Ooooch," he said. "How'd that happen?"

"Climbing a tree," said Lisa June Peterson.

"This I gotta hear."

"No, you don't."

The name of the strip club was Pube's.

Upon bribing the bouncer, Robert Clapley was dismayed to be informed that the Barbies had easily won first place in the amateur contest, snatched up the thousand-dollar cash prize and departed the premises with an individual named Avalon Brown, who claimed to be an independent film producer from Jamaica.

"I feel sick," Clapley said to Palmer Stoat.

"Don't. It's the best thing that could happen to you," Stoat said, "getting rid of those two junkie sluts."

"Knock it off, Palmer. I need those girls."

"Yeah, like you need rectal polyps."

Stoat was in a sour and restless mood. All around him were frisky nude women, dancing on tabletops, yet he couldn't stop thinking about Desie and the Polaroid.

But those nights were over, as was his marriage.

"Let's go," Clapley said. "Maybe they went back to the apartment."

Palmer Stoat raised a hand. "Hang on." The stage announcer was introducing the entrants for the final event, a Pamela Anderson Lee look-alike contest.

"Whoa, momma!" Stoat piped.

"If I had a grapefruit knife," said Robert Clapley, "I'd gouge out my eyeballs."

"Bob, are you kidding? They're gorgeous."

"They're grotesque. Cheap trash."

"As opposed to your classy twins," Stoat said archly, "Princess Grace and Princess Di, who are presently double-fellating some Rastafarian pornographer in exchange for a whole half a gram of Bolivian talc."