"You went backto Africa? When was this?" Estella asked. "How come you never told me?"

"That's because we're always talking politics, babe. Anyway, it was a quickie trip, just for a couple days," he added dismissively. "I believe it was the same weekend you went to that Quayle-for-President brunch."

She wriggled around to face him on the lion skin. "Let me get this straight. You went all the way to Kenya for a weekend? God, you must really love to hunt."

"Oh, I do. And I'm going back Saturday." Instantly, Stoat was sorry he'd said it.

Estella sat up excitedly, sloshing scotch on both of them. "Can I go, too, Palmer? Please?"

"No, honey, it's business this time. I'm taking along an important client. I promised him a rhino like mine."

"Aw, come on. I'll stay out of your way."

"Sorry, sweetheart."

"Then bring me back a nice present, all right? And not just cheapo beads or a grass skirt. A cool wood carving, or maybe – I know! – a Masai spear."

"Consider it done." Stoat, thinking dismally: Where am I going to find something like thatin Ocala, Florida?

"Wow. All the way to Africa." Estella raised her violet-rimmed lashes to the long wall of stuffed animal heads and laminated fish – Stoat's prize trophies. She said: "I've never even fired a cap pistol, Palmer, but every year I give a little money to the NRA. I am totally behind the Second Amendment."

"Me, too. As you can tell." Stoat airily swept his arm toward the blank-eyed taxidermy. "Like the song says, happiness is a hot gun."

Estella smiled inquisitively. "I don't think I ever heard that one."

27

Krimmler couldn't sleep.

I might never sleep again, he thought.

And Roger Roothaus had not believed the "bum in the tree" story!

Asked Krimmler if he'd been drinking. Suggested he take a vacation, drive the Winnebago up to Cedar Key or Destin.

"Nothing's happening on the island anyway," Roger Roothaus had said. "Not until we hear otherwise from Mr. Clapley. So go enjoy yourself. It's on me."

Krimmler protested. Insisted he felt fine. A bum really didbreak into my camper and beat me up and drag me up a goddamn tree. And left me stranded there, Roger! I had to crawl down in a blinding rainstorm. Nearly broke my ass.

Man, I'm worried about you, Roothaus had said.

You should be!

Don't say a word about this to Mr. Clapley, OK?

But Clapley sent a guy, too., another freak who busted into my place and roughed me up. He had snuff tapes–

I gotta take another call, Roothaus had said curtly. You get off the rock for a while, Karl. I'm serious.

But Krimmler had no intention of leaving Toad Island, because a general never abandoned the battleground, even for an all-expenses-paid beach vacation. So Krimmler loaded his .357 and hunkered down in the Winnebago to await the next intruder.

Hours passed and nobody came, but the pulse of the island murmured ominously at his door. The breeze. The seabirds. The rustle and sigh of the leaves. Krimmler was a haunted man. Besieged by Nature, he possessed the will and armaments to fight back – but no troops. Truly he was alone.

Oh, to hear the familiar backfire of an overloaded dump truck, the plangent buzz of chain saws, the metallic spine-jolting ploinkof a pile driver ... how Krimmler's soul would have cartwheeled with joy!

But the earth-moving machines he so loved sat mute and untended, and with each passing moment the cursed island resurged; stirred, blossomed, flexed to life. Locked inside the dank-smelling travel camper, Krimmler began to worry for his own sanity. He was teased and tormented by every cry of a sandpiper, every trill of a raccoon, every emboldened bark of a squirrel (which he had come to dread nearly as much as he dreaded chipmunks). The onset of a blustery dusk only seemed to amplify the primeval racket at Krimmler's door, and to drown the din he slammed a Tom Jones CD into the stereo. He turned on all the lights, wedged a deck chair under the doorknob, crawled under the covers – and waited for a slumber that would not come.

Outside the window, Toad Island mocked him.

Krimmler plugged his ears and thought: I might never sleep again.

He squeezed his eyelids together and spun a plot. At dawn he would commandeer one of the bulldozers and start mowing down trees, purely for therapy. Jump into a D6 and plow a wide dusty trench through some quiet, piney thicket. Fuck you, squirrels. Welcome to your future.

Krimmler smirked at the idea.

After a while he sat up and listened. The Winnebago had fallen silent except for a steady dripping on the roof from wet branches overhead. Hurriedly Krimmler snatched up the .357 and went to put in another CD.

That's when he heard the cry, unlike anything he'd heard before. It began as a low guttural moan and built to a winding, slow-waning Scream. The hair rose on Krimmler's forearms and his tongue turned to chalk. The scream was mighty enough to be that of a large cat, such as a panther, but nerdy Dr. Brinkman had said all panthers had long ago been shot or driven out of northwest Florida. In fact (Krimmler recalled), Roger Roothaus had explicitly inquired about the possibility of panthers on Toad Island, because the animals were listed as a protected species. One measly lump of scat and Uncle Sam could padlock the whole Shearwater operation, possibly forever.

Again the unearthly cry arose. Krimmler shuddered. What else could it possibly be but a panther? That goddamn Brinkman! He lied to us, Krimmler thought – a closet bunny-hugger, as I always suspected! That would explain why he disappeared all of a sudden; probably ran off to squeal to the feds.

Krimmler jerked open the door of the Winnebago and glared into the blue fog and drizzle. The cat scream seemed to be coming from the same upland grove where he had ordered the oak toads buried. The quavering yowl sounded almost human, like a man slowly dying.

Heppppppppppppppmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Well, sort of human, Krimmler mused. If you let your imagination run wild.

He stepped into a pair of canvas work trousers and pulled on a windbreaker. Grabbing the pistol and a flashlight, he stalked into the mist. To hell with that drunken snitch Brinkman, wherever he is, Krimmler seethed. This bugshit island willbe tamed; cleared dredged, drained, graded, platted, paved, stuccoed, painted and reborn as something of tangible, enduring human value – a world-class golf and leisure resort.

To Krimmler, the screaming in the night was a call to arms. He would not cower and he would not retreat, and he would not allow Shearwater to be thwarted by some smelly, spavined, tick-infested feline. Not after so much work and so much money and so much bullshit politics.

I'll kill the damn thing myself, Krimmler vowed.

Again the night was cleaved by wailing, and Krimmler struck out toward it in a defiant rage. This panther is beyond endangered, he thought. This fucker is doomed.

His charge was halted momentarily when he slipped on a log, the fall shattering his flashlight. Quickly he gathered himself and marched on, slashing with his gun arm to clear a path through the silhouetted trees. The feral cry drew him to the clearing where the toad-mulching bulldozers were parked, and in a frenzy Krimmler started firing the moment he burst from the woods.

"Here, kitty, kitty!" he exulted with a mad leer.

Heppppppppppppppmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Besides the money, what Robert Clapley missed most about the drug business was the respect. If you were known to be a smuggler of serious weight, the average low-life schmuck wouldn't dream of screwing with you.