Clapley seized Stoat by the collar. "Palmer, you're a goddamn pig."

"We're both pigs, Bob, so relax. Chill out. I'll get you a rhino horn and then you'll win your precious Barbies back." Stoat pulled free of Clapley's clutch. "Anyway, there's nothing you can do to me that hasn't already been done – starting with that fucking rodent your charming Mr. Gash gagged me with."

"That was after you tried to rip me off," Clapley reminded him, "double-billing me for the bridge fix. Or was it triple-billing?"

"So maybe I got a little greedy. But still ... "

Onstage, thirteen Pamela Anderson Lees were dancing, or at least bobbling, to the theme music from the Baywatchtelevision series. Palmer Stoat sighed in glassy wonderment. "Man, we live in incredible times. Look at all that!"

"I'm outta here."

"Go ahead. I'll grab a taxi." Stoat's gaze was riveted to the pneumatic spectacle onstage. It was just what he needed to take his mind off Desie.

"Don't call me again until Governor Dickhead signs over the bridge money and you've got your hands on some rhinoceros dust. Those are the only two goddamn news bulletins I want from you. Understand?"

Stoat grunted a vague assent. "Bob, before you take off ... "

"What now, Palmer?"

"How about another Cuban?"

Robert Clapley slapped a cigar on the table. "Turd fondler," he said.

"Sweet dreams, Bob."

21

On a cool May night, an unmarked panel truck delivered a plywood crate to the Wilderness Veldt Plantation. The crate had been shipped directly to a private airstrip in Ocala, Florida, thereby avoiding port-of-entry inspections by the U.S. Customs Service, Fish and Wildlife and other agencies that would have claimed a jurisdictional interest.

At the Wilderness Veldt Plantation, the scuffed box was loaded onto a flatbed and transported to a low-slung, windowless barn known as Quarantine One. Less than an hour later, Durgess was summoned from home. He was met outside the facility by a man named Asa Lando, whose job title at the hunting ranch was Supervisor of Game.

"How bad?" Durgess asked.

Asa Lando spat in the dirt.

Durgess frowned. "All right, lemme take a look."

The barn was divided into eight gated stalls, fenced with heavy-gauge mesh from the ground to the beams. Each stall had an overhead fan, a heater and a galvanized steel trough for food and water. The Hamburg delivery was in stall number three.

Durgess said: "You gotta be kiddin' ."

"I wish." Asa Lando knew he was in trouble. It was his responsibility to procure animals for the hunts.

"First off," Durgess began, "this ain't no cheetah."

"I know – "

"It's a ocelot or a margay. Hell, it can't weigh no more'n thirty-five pounds."

Asa Lando said, "No shit, Durge. I got eyes. I can see it ain't no cheetah. That's why I woke you outta bed."

"Second of all," said Durgess, "it's only got two goddamn legs."

"I can count,too." Asa sullenly poked the toe of his boot into the sawdust. "Could be worse."

Durgess glared. "How? If he came in a jar?"

"Look, this ain't the first time we run into this sorta situation.," Asa reminded him. "We got plenty clients happy to shoot gimped-out game."

"Not this client," Durgess said. One time they'd gotten away with a three-legged wildebeest, but two legs was out of the question, especially for a big cat.

Morosely the men stared through the fencing. With plucky agility, the ocelot hopped over and began rubbing its butt against the links.

"I wonder what the hell happened to him," Durgess said.

"Doc Terrell says he was likely a-born that way – one front leg, one back leg. All things considered, he's got an awful decent disposition."

Durgess cheerlessly agreed. "Tell me again where you got him."

"Uncle Wilhelm's Petting Zoo," Asa said. "They got rid of him on account he was eatin' all their parrots. Don't ast me how he caught the damn things, but I guess he taught hisself to jump like a motherfucker."

"And how much did we pay?" Durgess braced himself.

"Five grand, minus freight."

"Sweet Jesus."

"C.O.D."

"Asa, buddy, we got a serious problem." Durgess explained that one of their best customers, Palmer Stoat, was bringing a bigshot business associate to Wilderness Veldt to shoot a cheetah, a full-grown African cheetah.

"It's a big kill," Durgess said gravely. "Big money."

Asa eyed the wiry cat. "Maybe we can fatten him up 'tween now and then."

"Sure," Durgess said. "Staple on a couple fake legs while we're at it. Lord, Asa, sometimes I wonder 'bout you."

But the Supervisor of Game wasn't ready to admit failure. "Three hundred yards, Durge, one cat looks like another to these bozos. Remember Gummy the Lion?"

Durgess flicked his hand in disgust. Formerly known as Maximilian III, Gummy the Lion had been the star of a trained-animal act at a roadside casino outside Reno, Nevada. Old age and a lifelong affinity for chocolate-chip ice cream claimed first the big cat's canines and eventually all its teeth, so Max had been retired and sold to a wildlife wholesaler, who had in turn peddled the animal to the Wilderness Veldt Plantation. Even Asa Lando had been aghast when they'd uncrated it. Durgess had figured they were stuck with a new pet – who'd pay good money to shoot a senile, toothless lion?

A moron named Nick Teeble, it turned out. Eighteen thousand dollars he'd paid. That was how badly the retired tobacco executive had wanted a lion skin for the stone fireplace in his Costa Rican vacation chalet. It had been Asa who had sized up Nick Teeble for the phony he was; Asa who had persuaded Durgess to use the enfeebled Gummy in the canned hunt. And Asa had been right: Nick Teeble was both oblivious and incompetent, an ideal combination for Wilderness Veldt. It had taken Nick Teeble seven shots to hit the lion, whose disinclination to run or even stir from its nap was attributable to a complete and irreversible deafness (brought about by twenty-one years of performing in front of a very loud, very bad casino brass combo).

Durgess said to Asa London: "That was different. Teeble was a chump."

"Allour customers are chumps," Asa Lando pointed out. "They damn sure ain't hunters. They just want somethin' large and dead for the wall. Talk about chumps, you can start with your Mr. Stoat."

"The man he's bringing here has done real big-game trips. He won't go for no Gummy routine," Durgess asserted. "He ain't gonna buy it if we tell him he shottwo legs off that cat."

Asa Lando said, unflaggingly: "Don't be so

sure."

"Hey, the man wants a cheetah, which is the fastest land mammal in the whole entire world. This poor critter here" – Durgess gestured at the lopsided ocelot – "couldn't outrun my granny's wheelchair."

As if on cue, the cat hip-hopped itself in a clockwise motion, hoisted its tail and sprayed through the mesh of the cage, dappling both men's pants.

"Damn!" cried Asa Lando, jumping back from the stall.

Durgess turned and trudged out of the building.

Riding in silence, they crossed the old bridge in late afternoon. Twilly Spree headed for the beach instead of the bed-and-breakfast, even though they were hungry. He hoped a sunset would improve Desie's spirits.

But a front was pushing through, and the horizon disappeared behind rolling purple-tinged clouds. A grayness fell suddenly over the shore and a cool, wet-smelling breeze sprung off the Gulf. Twilly and Desie held hands loosely as they walked. McGuinn loped ahead to harass the terns and gulls.

"Rain's coming," Twilly said.

"It feels great." Desie took a long deep breath.

"At each end of this beach is where they want to put those condos," said Twilly, "like sixteen-story bookends. 'Luxury units starting in the low two hundreds!' " This was straight off a new billboard that Robert Clapley had erected on U.S. 19. Twilly had noticed it that morning while driving back to the island.