Carl Hiaasen by Nature Girl

Author:Nature Girl
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge (Fla.), Mystery & Detective, Humorous, Florida, General, American, Humorous Stories, Mystery Fiction, Humorous Fiction, Manic-Depressive Illness, Fiction, Detective and Mystery Stories
ISBN: 0739326260
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2006-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Louis Piejack gazed through the binoculars and said, “Jackpot!” Then he said it another six or seven times.

“What is it?” Dealey asked miserably from the bow.

“Get your camera ready. I see titties.”

Dealey squinted ahead. The bay was a rippled puddle of glare, and the two kayaks were at least five hundred yards away.

“No good,” he said to Louis Piejack. “It’s too far, plus they’re backlit.”

“They ain’t Honey’s, but those are some major-league boobs. Rig up that damn camera.”

Dealey snapped open one of the Halliburtons and removed a Nikon body, which he attached to a small tripod. From the other case he took a 600-millimeter telephoto lens. Assembly was achieved with shaking fingers, for Dealey was afraid of dropping the expensive equipment overboard.

Louis Piejack laid off on the throttle, crowing, “Jackpot! Jackpot! They stopped at the island!” His good right hand held the field glasses to his eyes while his swathed left paw steered the johnboat.

“It’s still backlit, don’t you understand? There’s no shot from here,” Dealey complained.

“That’s Dismal Key. I know another way in.”

Dealey said, “Go slow, okay? Camera gets splashed and we’re out of business.”

And I’m out two grand, he thought.

“But I want movies,” Piejack said, “not pitchers.”

Dealey packed the Nikon away. He said they needed to get much closer to record usable videotape.

“Noooooo problem.” Piejack was fuzzy from the Vicodin tablets he’d eaten for lunch. It wasn’t easy maintaining a high-level addiction to prescription painkillers with one’s dominant hand swaddled so cumbersomely. Piejack had assigned Dealey—under threat of execution—to open the bottle and count out five tablets, which with lizardly flicks of his scabbed tongue he’d slurped from his captive’s palm. Dealey, mortified, had said nothing.

Piejack circled to the far side of the island and poked the johnboat along an overgrown mangrove creek. The talon-like branches clawed at Dealey’s skin and tore holes in his suit jacket, but Piejack seemed unconcerned. He ran the boat hard aground, snatched up his shotgun and jumped out. Dealey followed, lugging the camera gear.

“Don’t get no ideas,” Piejack warned.

“You think I’m crazy?”

In fact, Dealey had thought of nothing but escape since they’d motored out of Everglades City. Now, trailing Piejack into the heart of the island, Dealey waited for the loopy kidnapper to falter. With providence, Piejack soon would pass out from the excess of narcotics, presenting Dealey with a couple of options. Running like hell would be high on the list, but where would he go? Even if he got the johnboat running, Dealey wasn’t confident that he could find his way to the mainland.

A more practical idea was to snatch the shotgun while Louis Piejack slept, and then force the nimrod to ferry him back to town. Even with a plan in mind, Dealey remained anxious, for nothing on the streets of Fort Worth had prepared him for such a situation—being trapped in the Everglades with a maimed and trigger-happy fishmonger.

“Shut up,” Piejack barked.

“I didn’t say a word.”

“Then who the hell did?” Piejack halted, raising a begauzed hand. Dealey heard nothing except his own rapid breathing; the camera cases were heavy.

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