"Sure, it's cold-blooded," he said, "but that's the game of journalism for you. It's the only game I know, but I know how to win."

"The old hype button," Keyes said.

"You got it, Ace!" Wiley slapped him on the shoulder. "Let's go find your funny friends."

They walked up Cable Beach. Keyes sidestepped the wavelets but Wiley crashed ahead, kicking water with his enormous slabs of feet. He cocked his head high, chin thrust toward the sun.

"If you hate tourists so much," Keyes said, "why'd you come here, of all places?"

"Sovereignty," Wiley replied, "and convenience. Besides, the Bahamas is different from Florida. The A.Q. here is only forty-two."

A.Q., Keyes remembered, stood for Asshole Quotient. Skip Wiley had a well-known theory that the quality of life declined in direct proportion to the Asshole Quotient. According to Wiley's reckoning, Miami had 134 total assholes per square mile, giving it the worst A.Q. in North America. In second place was Aspen, Colorado (101), with Malibu Beach, California, finishing third at 97.

Every year Skip Wiley wrote a column rating the ten most unbearable places on the continent according to A.Q., and every year the city editor diligently changed "Asshole Quotient" to "Idiot Quotient" before the column could be published. The next day Wiley would turn in a new column apologizing to his readers because he'd neglected to count one more total asshole, that being his own editor. And of course Wiley's editor would immediately delete that,too. After a few years it was obvious that even Skip Wiley couldn't get the word assholeinto the Miami Sun,but the whole newsroom looked forward to the annual struggle.

"The great thing about the Bahamas," Wiley was saying, "is that they don't let the tourists stay. Trying to buy property here is like trying to get a personal audience with the pope. Damn near impossible without the right connections. So, Mr. and Mrs. Mickey Mouse Ears from Akron can come and tinkle away all their money, but then it's bye-bye, leavin' on a jet plane. Punch out at immigrations. Too bad they didn't think of this system in Florida."

"Florida's not an island, Skip."

Wiley hopped over two Bahamian children who were wrestling in the water. His gravelly, melodic laughter mixed with their giggles and carried into the surf.

"Don't you think this has gone far enough?" Keyes asked.

"I was waiting for you to say that," Wiley said, marching ahead. "Mr. I'm-Only-Trying-to-Help, that's you. A real killjoy."

Keyes stopped walking. The blue water curled over his tennis shoes. "I hate to see people die, that's all," he said to Wiley.

"I know you do," Wiley said, looking back. "So do I. Believe it or not." He didn't need to say any more. They were both remembering little Callie Davenport.

Up ahead a crowd of bathers gathered noisily in a circle under some slash pines. Keyes and Wiley heard the sound of men shouting and, in the distance, a siren.

Keyes thought of Burt and James and started running, his sneakers squishing in the sand. Wiley put on a sudden burst of speed and caught him by the arm.

"Wait a minute, Ace, better let me check this out."

On the fringe of the melee Keyes counted four Bahamian policemen, each wearing a pith helmet and crisp white uniform. They carried hard plastic batons but no sidearms. Wiley strolled up and started chatting with one of the cops; he came back with the bad news.

"I'm afraid your friends had to learn the hard way."

From a distance Keyes watched the Bahamian officers lead Burt and James away from the beach. The purple fez hats were easy to follow, bobbing above the jolly crowd.

"What the hell happened?" Keyes asked, contemplating a rescue attempt.

"Stay here," Wiley cautioned, "unless you're into bondage."

What had happened was this: on their reluctant trek down Cable Beach, the keen-eyed Shriners had sported none other than Viceroy Wilson, the fugitive football star, coming toward them. As usual Wilson was wrapped safely behind his Carrera sunglasses and, as usual, he was stoked to the gills, having scored some prime Jamaican herb off a busboy at the hotel. Viceroy Wilson had never been to the islands, and the striking display of Bahamian womanhood along the beach had seriously diverted his attention from the revolution. Wilson was so preoccupied that he hadn't noticed the two husky purple-hatted honkies in gray suits stalking him among the bathers.

The Shriners had struck swiftly, with a sinister rustle of polyester. Burt had seized Viceroy Wilson's left arm and James had grabbed the right, pivoting and twisting in a very sophisticated karate maneuver. Unfortunately, the people who invented karate never got to practice on 235-pound former NFL fullbacks with sequoia-sized arms. Viceroy Wilson had disrespectfully flattened the Shriners and broken hard for the hotel. Robbed of agility by the marijuana, he'd tripped on an Igloo cooler and gone down. The Shriners had been upon him quickly, puffing and grunting and attaching themselves to his powerful torso. Somehow Viceroy Wilson had risen to his feet and galvanized his famous legs. The old reflexes had taken command; with Shriners clinging to his thighs, Wilson churned along the beach. It was a memorable sight, and several quick-witted tourists had turned their home-movie cameras toward the combat. Viceroy Wilson was all elbows and knees and speed, and the Shriners had fallen away, tassels spinning. Eventually the police had arrived and arrested Burt and James for assault. The officers apologized profusely to Skip Wiley, for they specifically had been recruited to keep watch over Wiley's entourage, a commitment guaranteed by a generous cash gratuity.

"I told your bookends to behave," Wiley said reproachfully as they watched the police van drive off.

Keyes asked wearily, "Are they going to jail?"

"Naw, to the airport. They'll be deported as undesirables. Certainly can't argue with that."

They returned to the shade of the blue umbrella. Keyes sat down in the cool sand. Wiley stretched out on the patio chair.

"They're going to figure out it's you," Keyes said. "The cops, the press. Somebody'll put it together."

"Not for a while." Wiley squinted into the sun. "You weren't thinking about squealing, were you?"

Keyes shook his head and looked away, out at the gentle waves. Of course I'm thinking about it, you jerk.

"Because I meant what I said before," Wiley said. "If the cops catch on to me too soon, we're in trouble. And if they do catch on, I'll know it was you. Nobody else."

"But, Skip, there's all kinds of clues. Wilson and the Cuban, they're leaving a trail—"

"Fine, no problem. That we can survive. Besides, they're secretly dying to be famous again. Me—I've got to work in the background right now. Too much planning to be done, juking here and there. I can't have Metro Homicide sniffing after me; it plays hell with the creative process. See, if I'm exposed as El Fuego,I'll lose my leverage with the troops. It'll mean I'm not so shrewd, not so clever, not so irreplaceable. They'll stop listening to me, Brian, and that's big goddamn trouble. Some of the things these fellas want to do, some of the people they want to snuff! Lose me and you lose the voice of reason. Then it's Bloodbath City, old pal, and that ain't standard Wiley hyperbole. That's a goddamn fact."

Keyes studied his unraveled friend and thought of the Ida Kimmelman ceremony. Skip's threat of a massacre seemed deadly serious.

Keyes said, "If you've got them so mesmerized, convince them to call it off."

Wiley answered with a snort. "Never! The cause is just. The dream is pure." He pointed a finger at Keyes. "It's up to you and Cab and the others to end the violence. How? Accept the Nights of December as a legitimate terrorist cell. Give us a forum. Pass the message that we're serious, that we'll continue the campaign until the exodus is fully under way. Ha! Imagine: bumper-to-bumper from Key West to Jacksonville: U-Hauls, Winnebagos, Air streams, station wagons, moving vans, buses, eighteen-wheelers. All northbound!" Wiley sat up animatedly. "Brian, in the last hour we've been talking, 41.6 morons moved into the state of Florida. They are arriving at the rate of a thousand a day. One thousand each and every day! There is no place to put them!The land is shriveling beneath us, the water is poison, the air is rancid." Wiley threw back his head. "Lord, such a simple equation. Nature's trying to tell us it's time to move on."