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    Tourist Season
    Tourist Season
    Tourist Season
    Ebook475 pages6 hours

    Tourist Season

    By Carl Hiaasen

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Take a trip to exotic South Florida with this dark, funny book that established Carl Hiaasen as one of the top mystery writers in the game.

    The first sign of trouble is a Shriner's fez washed up on a Miami beach. The next is a suitcase containing the almost-legless body of the local chamber of commerce president found floating in a canal...

    The locals are desperate to keep the murders under wraps and the tourist money flowing. But it will take a reporter-turned–private eye to make sense of a caper that mixes football players, politicians, and one very hungry crocodile in this classic mystery that GQ called “one of the top ten destination reads of all time.”
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Publishing Group
    Release dateMar 24, 1986
    ISBN9781101436653
    Author

    Carl Hiaasen

    Carl Hiaasen (b. 1953) is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of more than twenty adult and young adult novels and nonfiction titles, including the novels Strip Tease (1993) and Skinny Dip (2004), as well as the mystery-thrillers Powder Burn (1981), Trap Line (1982), and A Death in China (1984), which were cowritten with fellow Miami Herald journalist Bill Montalbano (1941–1998). Hiaasen is best known for his satirical writing and dark humor, much of which is directed at various social and political issues in his home state of Florida. He is an award-winning columnist for the Miami Herald, and lives in Vero Beach.

    Read more from Carl Hiaasen

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    Reviews for Tourist Season

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    • 4/5
      ¡Viva Las Noches de Diciembre, Viva!

      Tourist Season, published in 1986 is a dystopian novel set more than 37 years in the future and is perfectly prescient of present day Florida.

      This is also 10 years BEFORE Rupert Murdock created the far-right-wing, fascist propaganda network Fox. Fox "news" programs - affectionately and more properly known as Faux News - are the most watched in the US and functions as sort of a cross between Pravda and the National Enquirer although the former may also owned and operated by Murdock since its pro-Kremlin stances have long been established. Granted, something like 150 million Americans prefer alternative facts; Insurrectionists and the "Covid is a hoax" crowd (however, if the global Coronavirus pandemic is not a hoax, those people who opt to drink bleach and take horse dewormer instead). And as I write this, three former Fox executives recently expressed regret for helping Rupert Murdoch build his US broadcasting business, describing Fox News as a "disinformation machine." Ummm, okay, but you're about 30 years too late, that bus has sailed.

      Cable networks like Fox are licensed as entertainment so they are not bound to report any actual facts on programs they claim to be news, hence, Faux News. In Tourist Season, our anti-hero or protagonist Skip Wiley, became overburdened by too many years in the news industry and found himself to be, let's say, somewhat jaded. Wiley determined that only way to turn the tide of destruction was to proactive and proceed in a less than subtle fashion.

      ******************

      "Brian, what is Florida anyway? An immense sunny toilet where millions of tourists flush their money and save the moment on Kodak film. The recipe for redemption is simple: scare away the tourists and pretty soon you scare off the developers. No more developers, no more bankers. No more bankers, no more lawyers. No more lawyers, no more dope smugglers. The whole motherfucking economy implodes! Now, tell me I'm crazy."

      "Skip, there's got to be another way,"

      "No!" Wiley shot to his feet, uprooting the beach umbrella with his head. "There... is... no... other... way! Think about it, you mullusk-brained moron! What gets headlines? Murder, mayhem, and madness - the cardinal M's of the newsroom. That's what terrifies the travel agents of the world. That's what rates congressional hearings and crime commissions. And that's what frightens off bozo Shriner conventions. It's a damn shame, I grant you that. It's a shame I simply couldn't stand up at the next county commission meeting and ask our noble public servants to please stop destroying the planet. It's a shame that the people who poisoned this paradise won't just apologize and pack their U-Hauls and head back North to the smog and the blizzards. But it's a proven fact they won't leave until somebody lights a fire under ‘em. That's what Las Noches de Diciembre is all about. ‘Cops Seek Grisly Suitcase Killer' ... ‘Elderly Woman Abducted, Fed to Vicious Reptile' ... ‘Golf Course Bomb Claims Three on Tricky Twelfth Hole‘ ... ‘Crazed Terrorists Stalk Florida Tourists.'" Wiley was practically chanting the headlines, as if he were watching them roll off the presses at the New York Post.

      ******************

      [On Las Noches de Diciembre.]

      "Mr. Keyes," a vice-mayor said, "what is it they want?"

      "They want us to leave," Keyes said.

      "All of us," Garcia added, "from Palm Beach to Key West."

      "I don't understand," the vice-mayor said.

      "They want Florida back," Keyes said, "the way it was."

      "The way it was when?"

      "When it wasn't fucked up with so many people," Garcia said.

      The table erupted in snorts and sniggering, and the men in the blazers seemed to shake their heads gravely in syncopation. "Why doesn't this kind of shit ever happen to Disney World?" one of them said mournfully.

      [Given that this is first fiction novel, I will give Carl a pass for not envisioning that the money and politics that runs the US would not install a Ron DeSantis as governor of Florida who would actually go after Disney World.]

      ******************

      [I loved that our anti-hero used Victor Hugo as an alias; fits in perfectly with the American political situation.]

      "Did he give a name at the airport?"

      "Yes, he did," Garcia said.

      Then all at once, like a flock of crows: "What?"

      Garcia glanced over at the police chief. The chief shrugged. The Orange Bowl chairman waved a chubby hand, trying to get somebody's attention.

      "The suspect did use a name at the airport," Garcia said, "but we believe it was an alias."

      "What was it?"

      "In fact, we're ninety-nine percent sure it was an alias," the detective said, fading from the microphone.

      "What was it, Al? What?"

      "Well," Garcia said, "the name the suspect gave was Hugo. Victor Hugo."

      There was a lull in the questioning while the reporters explained to each other who Victor Hugo was.

      ******************

      I hated the ending. It made sense, and it was probably symbolic of the whole story. Unbeknownst to all a small destruction which will lead to the ultimate destruction of all while the world remains blissfully ignorant. I get it, I just didn't like it.
    • 4/5
      I'm sure I've read this book in the past, but I decided to read it again and found I didn't remember anything about the book. Although the story never dragged (at least not much), I felt it would have been better if it had been a little shorter. If I was grading it as a first time novel, I would grade it 4 stars.
    • 5/5
      This comic masterpiece has been around for a while, but it is as politically relevant as ever. It is also very, very funny in the darkest possible way. And it tells a great story that keeps the reader flipping those pages. Don't usually give crime fiction five stars, but this more than deserves it.
    • 4/5
      Love Carl Hiaasen, but this is not one of my favorites. Of course there were some classic characters in it and it was entertaining. A good summer read.
    • 5/5
      I've only recently discovered Hiaasen (thanks, actually, to a reader of this list!) and after three of his books, I'm now a lifelong fan. His black humor and quirky plot pieces are just delicious. In Tourist Season a Miami newspaper columnist has decided that Florida was better off before tourists so he sets out to fix the problem. (reviewed in 1996)
    • 4/5
      More of a thriller than a mystery but even more a satire of 1980s Florida and the way PR and newspapers interact. My biggest problem with it wasn't the over-the-top characters but Brian Keyes' decision to not go to the police after he discovered that Skip Wilson was involved. His reasoning behind this decision felt forced and not once did he seem to consider that his own PI license could be revoked for this obstruction. He became in effect an accessory after the fact.
    • 2/5
      Sarcastic, misanthropic, sexist so-called humor that didn't seem humorous to me. Throw in interesting ways to torture dogs and this is not a book I'd recommend to anyone, but I'm sure people who are annoyed by political correctness will love it.
    • 3/5
      I don't think I clicked with Hiaasen's sense of humor. I can see the potential in the story and the plotline was interesting. I just didn't get along with the execution of the plot. Most parts seemed to drag on and I was waiting forever for the "big event". I didn't like any of the characters, and there weren't even any characters that I loved to hate. I can see how this book would appeal to fans; I just think it didn't match my reading style. The reason I gave this book 3 stars instead of a lower rating was because the ending of the book was perfect. It matched the personality of the characters and no other ending would have been appropriate. I give Hiaasen full credit for fully committing to the plan.
    • 3/5

      Tourist Season is a caper about an amateur terrorist organization that wants to end the tourist industry that is ruining Florida. When the president of the Miami Chamber of Commerce is found dead inside a suitcase with his legs amputated and a rubber alligator stuffed down his throat, police and newspaper reporters prefer to believe it's simply another South Florida crime. Soon, other tourists begin disappearing. The police determine there's no connection and it's not too important. This frustrates the group who is doing the killings. They start sending letters with the name of their terrorist group, Las Noches de Diciembre, linking the Chamber of Commerce death to the disappearances of a visiting Shriner and a Canadian tourist.

      Private Detective and former newsman Brian Keyes realizes the terrorist group's goal is to convince all tourists to leave the state and never return. It's not long before Brian finds himself caught up in a bizarre string of crimes: a series of murders perpetrated by a radical group using carnivorous reptiles, both living and rubber, as weapons in an attempt to free Florida from the greed, development and reckless destruction of the environment.

      I found this to be a very entertaining book, with interesting characters, and a plot that moves briskly along through a number of twists and turns. This was my first Carl Hiasson book and I can see why he has legions of fans enjoying his stories.
    • 4/5
      It's hard not to like these stories. They're engaging and fun. I'll keep reading them.
    • 4/5
      This guy is one sick puppy, but he tells a good story.
    • 1/5
      Maybe I should admit a bias here -- I am really not a mystery fan. When I found out that the hero of this book is a private investigator, I was immediately biased against it. That the PI came from a journalist background, just like Hiaasen, made me more dubious. With the single exception of Wiley the characters are pretty much all stereotypes. I mean, come on -- the down on his luck former football player, the hotheaded latin, the mystical Indian (argghh), the good cop and the bad cop, etc. There are some humorous turns of phrase, I will grant you, but nothing here that counts as any kind of commentary on the human condition, unless you count the now overdone and trite environmental NIMBY-ism. Oh, and the hero ends up with the brilliant beauty queen -- someone please tell me that in writing this Hiaasen wasn't just indulging in personal fantasy. Nothing here to convince me to waste my time reading any of his other books.
    • 5/5
      Heartbreaking. This is not a comedic book. It's the Florida cautionary tale. I bawled at the end. If you are new to Hiaasen, start here at the beginning. All of his later works pale in comparison.
    • 3/5
      A solid introduction to the bizarre world of Carl Hiassen, but without the bit of humanity that he brings to later book. Representative of his type of humor - if you enjoy it, read on with the series; if not, probably should find something else.
    • 5/5
      this is hiuaasen's first solo novel and it is a rollicking romp with constant humour, descriptions, and activiites that are all natural to south florida. all he did was put thbem togetherf within a few days. what would be more natural, though, for some crackers and seminoles to get together and form a terrorist organization withn the aim to get the tourists out of florida. the idea is so compelling, i have begun fantascizing forming such a thing myself.
    • 5/5
      Any book that starts out with the discovery of a dead, mutilated midget
      stuffed in a bright red American Tourister suitcase will grab my attention
      right away. LOL In this book, a small band of disgruntled and oddly
      matched terrorists take it upon themselves to try to empty Florida of
      tourists and snowbirds and turn it back into the lush wilderness it once
      was. A half-crazed but extremely smart newspaper columnist, a washed up
      former Miami Dolphin football star, a lunatic Cuban (born and raised in New
      Jersey, of all places) and a quietly lethal Seminole Indian, wealthy beyond
      belief from Indian bingo parlors, all have motives of their own, but
      together they make a decidedly formidible foe. Tracked reluctantly by a
      private detective with a personal ax to grind against the columnist, they
      plow their way through Miami's tourist population, kidnapping and murdering
      randomly selected people, just for publicity to scare the beejezus out of
      the rest of them and make them all want to GO HOME!

      Like his other books, Hiaasen has created a cast of characters with so many
      quirks and foibles you can't help but embrace them. Even the "bad guys"
      have qualities to admire. Hiaasen writes with wit and finesse and his books
      are always very satisfying. This one was written back in the mid 1980s and
      is a little dated, but still a great read. (In one place, the detective has
      a hell of a time finding a telephone and I guess I'm a creature of the
      current times because I kept thinking, "Just use your cell phone!" LOL)

      I do heartily recommend any of the Hiaasen books I've read and this one
      happily joins that list.
    • 2/5
      I have read other Carl Hiaasen books and have enjoyed them. This one, I completely disliked. I didn't care about the characters. The plot did not carry me along. I am ashamed to admit that I even finished the book, but I did. I'm trying to decide if I should include it in the stack of books to donate to our local library, but based on other reviewers, it seems that some people enjoyed this one.
    • 5/5
      This is the Carl Hiaasen we know. He turns his black comedy and satire as it relates to the ever current problem of the influx of people to South Florida. A Shriner disappears leaving only his fez behind. Another local business booster is found dead with an toy alligator in his throat. You will start to want to see what the villain of the story does next, for he is more interesting than the hero. You will not want to put this book down.

      What I also like about his books is if you know a bit about South Florida you can see these things really happening. I did not want to give the plot away, for their are some twist and turns you will enjoy. And the title of the book is highly suggestive. So if you want a fun read, open "Tourist Seaosn".
    • 5/5
      Riotous and rollicking tale of murder, mayhem and bumbling politico-environmental activists in South Florida. Hiassen's first solo effort.
    • 3/5
      For Hiassen fans, familiar territory. The story centres on a motley crew of terrorists out to sabotage the Orange Bowl festivities. Their aim: to undermine the tourist economy that is ravaging Florida's environment.

      The novel is an immensely thought-provoking exploration of good and evil and how in the real world the issues are seldom black and white.

      BTW, the book is very funny.
    • 4/5
      A fun murder mystery with some South Florida politics thrown in. If you live or have lived in Florida you might want to pick up one of his books - they all have something to say about Florida politics form sugar cane millionaires buying senators to the gritty truth about Disney. This one was about the environment and diappearing everglades.

    Book preview

    Tourist Season - Carl Hiaasen

    1

    On the morning of December 1, a man named Theodore Bellamy went swimming in the Atlantic Ocean off South Florida. Bellamy was a poor swimmer, but he was a good real-estate man and a loyal Shriner.

    The Shriners thought so much of Theodore Bellamy that they had paid his plane fare all the way from Evanston, Illinois, to Miami Beach, where a big Shriner convention was being staged. Bellamy and his wife, Nell, made it a second honeymoon, and got a nice double room at the Holiday Inn. The view was nothing to write home about; a big green dumpster was all they could see from the window, but the Bellamys didn’t complain. They were determined to love Florida.

    On the night of November 30, the Shriners had arranged a little parade down Collins Avenue. Theodore Bellamy put on his mauve fez and his silver riding jacket, and drove his chrome-spangled Harley Davidson (all the important Evanston Shriners had preshipped their bikes on a flatbed) up and down Collins in snazzy circles and figure eights, honking the horns and flashing the lights. Afterward Bellamy and his pals got bombed and sneaked out to the Place Pigalle to watch a 325-pound woman do a strip-tease. Bellamy was so snockered he didn’t even blink at the ten-dollar cover.

    Nell Bellamy went to bed early. When her husband lurched in at 4:07 in the morning, she said nothing. She may have even smiled just a little, to herself.

    The alarm clock went off like a Redstone rocket at eight sharp. We’re going swimming, Nell announced. Theodore was suffering through the please-God-I’ll-never-do-it-again phase of his hangover when his wife hauled him out of bed. Next thing he knew, he was wearing his plaid swim trunks, standing on the beach, Nell nudging him toward the surf, saying you first, Teddy, tell me if it’s warm enough.

    The water was plenty warm, but it was also full of Portuguese men-of-war, poisonous floating jellyfish that pucker on the surface like bright blue balloons. Theodore Bellamy quickly became entangled in the burning tentacles of such a creature. He thrashed out of the ocean, his fish-white belly streaked with welts, the man-of-war clinging to his bare shoulder. He was crying. His fez was soaked.

    At first Nell Bellamy was embarrassed, but then she realized that this was not Mango Daiquiri Pain, this was the real thing. She led her husband to a Disney World beach towel, and there she cradled him until two lifeguards ran up with a first-aid kit.

    Later, Nell would remember that these were not your average-looking bleached-out lifeguards. One was black and the other didn’t seem to speak English, but what the heck, this was Miami. She had come here resolved not to be surprised at anything, and this was the demeanor she maintained while the men knelt over her fallen husband. Besides, they were wearing authentic lifeguard T-shirts, weren’t they?

    After ten minutes of ministrations and Vaseline, the lifeguards informed Nell Bellamy that they would have to transport her husband to a first-aid station. They said he needed medicine to counteract the man-of-war’s venom. Nell wanted to go along, but they persuaded her to wait, and assured her it was nothing serious. Theodore said don’t be silly, work on your tan, I’ll be okay now.

    And off they went, Theodore all pale-legged and stripe-bellied, a lifeguard at each side, marching down the beach.

    That was 8:44 A.M.

    Nell Bellamy never saw her husband again.

    At ten sharp she went searching for the lifeguards, with no success, and after walking a gritty two-mile stretch of beach, she called the police. A patrolman came to the Holiday Inn and took a missing-persons report. Nell mentioned Theodore’s hangover and what a lousy swimmer he was. The cop told Mrs. Bellamy that her husband had probably tried to go back in the water and had gotten into trouble in the rough surf. When Mrs. Bellamy described the two lifeguards, the policeman gave her a very odd look.

    The case of Theodore Bellamy was not given top priority at the Miami Beach police department, where the officers had more catastrophic things to worry about than a drunken Shriner missing in the ocean.

    The police instead were consumed with establishing the whereabouts of B. D. Sparky Harper, one of the most important persons in all Florida; Harper, who had failed to show up at his office for the first time in twenty-one years. Every available detective was out shaking the palm trees, hunting for Sparky.

    When it became clear that the police were too preoccupied to launch a manhunt for her husband, Nell Bellamy mobilized the Shriners. They invaded the beach in packs, some on foot, others on motorcycle, a few in tiny red motorcars that had a tendency to get stuck in the sand. The Shriners wore grim, purposeful looks; Teddy Bellamy was one of their own.

    The Shriners were thorough, and they got results. Nell cried when she heard the news.

    They had found Theodore’s fez on the beach, at water’s edge.

    Nell thought: So he really drowned, the big nut.

    Later the Shriners gathered at Lummus Park for an impromptu prayer service. Someone laid a wreath on the handlebars of Bellamy’s customized Harley.

    Nobody could have dreamed what actually happened to Theodore Bellamy. But this was just the beginning.

    *   *   *

    They found Sparky Harper later that same day, a bright and cloudless afternoon.

    A cool breeze kicked up a light chop on the Pines Canal, where the suitcase floated, half-submerged, invisible to the teenager on water skis. He was skimming along at forty knots when he rammed the luggage and launched into a spectacular triple somersault.

    His friends wheeled the boat to pick him up and offer congratulations. Then they doubled back for the suitcase. It took all three of them to haul it aboard; they figured it had to be stuffed with money or dope.

    The water skier got a screwdriver from a toolbox and chiseled at the locks on the suitcase. Let’s see what’s inside! he said eagerly.

    And there, folded up like Charlie McCarthy, was B. D. Sparky Harper.

    A dead midget! the boat driver gasped.

    That’s no midget, the water skier said. That’s a real person.

    Oh God, we gotta call the cops. Come on, help me shut this damn thing.

    But with Sparky Harper swelling, the suitcase wouldn’t close, and the latches were broken anyway, so all the way back to the marina the three of them sat on the luggage to keep the dead midget inside.

    *   *   *

    Two Dade County detectives drove out to Virginia Key to get the apple-red Samsonite Royal Tourister. They took a statement from the water skier, put the suitcase in the trunk of their unmarked Plymouth, and headed back downtown.

    One of the cops, a blocky redhead, walked into the medical examiner’s office carrying the Samsonite as if nothing were wrong. Is this the Pan Am terminal? he deadpanned to the first secretary he saw.

    The suitcase was taken to the morgue and placed on a shiny steel autopsy table. Dr. Joe Allen, the chief medical examiner, recognized Sparky Harper instantly.

    The first thing we’ve got to do, said Dr. Allen, putting on some rubber gloves, is get him out of there.

    Whoever had murdered the president of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce had gone to considerable trouble to pack him into the red Samsonite. Sparky was only five-foot-five, but he weighed nearly one hundred ninety pounds, most of it in the midriff. To have squeezed him into a suitcase, even a deluxe-sized suitcase, was a feat that drew admiring comments from the coroner’s seasoned staff. One of the clerks used up two rolls of film documenting the extrication.

    Finally the corpse was removed and unfolded, more or less, onto the table. It was then that some of the amazement dissolved: Harper’s legs were missing below the kneecaps. That’s how the killer had fit him into the suitcase.

    One of the cops whispered, Look at those clothes, Doc.

    It was odd. Sparky Harper had died wearing a brightly flowered print shirt and baggy Bermuda-style shorts. Sporty black wraparound sunglasses concealed his dilated pupils. He looked just like any old tourist from Milwaukee.

    The autopsy took two hours and twenty minutes. Inside Sparky Harper, Dr. Allen found two gallstones, forty-seven grams of partially digested stone crabs, and thirteen ounces of Pouilly Fuisse. But the coroner found no bullets, no stab wounds, no signs of trauma besides the amputations, which were crude but not necessarily fatal.

    He must have bled to death, the redheaded cop surmised.

    Don’t think so, Dr. Allen said.

    Bet he drowned, said the other cop.

    No, sir, said Dr. Allen, who was probing into the lungs by now. Dr. Allen wasn’t crazy about people gawking over his shoulder while he worked. It made him feel like he was performing onstage, a magician pulling little purple treasures out of a dark hole. He didn’t mind having medical students as observers because they were always so solemn during an autopsy. Cops were something else; one dumb joke after another. Dr. Allen had never figured out why cops get so silly in a morgue.

    What’s that greasy stuff all over his skin? asked the redheaded detective.

    Essence of Stiff, said the other cop.

    Smells like coconuts, said the redhead. I’m serious, Doc, take a whiff.

    No, thank you, Dr. Allen said curtly.

    I don’t smell anything, said the assistant coroner, except the deceased.

    It’s coconut, definitely, said the other cop, sniffing. Maybe he drowned in piña colada.

    Nobody could have guessed what actually had killed Sparky Harper. It was supple and green and exactly five and one-quarter inches long. Dr. Allen found it lodged in the trachea. At first he thought it was a large chunk of food, but it wasn’t.

    It was a toy rubber alligator. It had cost seventy-nine cents at a tourist shop along the Tamiami Trail. The price tag was still glued to its corrugated tail.

    B. D. Sparky Harper, the president of the most powerful chamber of commerce in all Florida, had choked to death on a rubber alligator. Well, well, thought Dr. Allen as he dangled the prize for his protégés to see, here’s one for my slide show at next month’s convention.

    2

    News of B. D. Harper’s death appeared on the front page of the Miami Sun with a retouched photograph that made Harper look like a flatulent Gene Hackman. Details of the crime were meager, but this much was known:

    Harper had last been seen on the night of November 30, driving away from Joe’s Stone Crab restaurant on South Miami Beach. He had told friends he was going to the Fontainebleau Hilton for drinks with some convention organizers from the International Elks.

    Harper had not been wearing a Jimmy Buffett shirt and Bermuda shorts, but in fact had been dressed in a powder-blue double-knit suit purchased at J. C. Penney’s.

    He had not appeared drunk.

    He had not worn black wraparound sunglasses.

    He had not been lugging a red Samsonite.

    He had not displayed a toy rubber alligator all evening.

    In the newspaper story a chief detective was quoted as saying, This one’s a real whodunit, which is what the detective was told to say whenever a reporter called.

    In this instance the reporter was Ricky Bloodworth.

    Bloodworth wore that pale, obsessive look of ambition so familiar to big-city newsrooms. He was short and bony, with curly black hair and a squirrellike face frequently speckled with late-blooming acne. He was frenetic to a fault, dashing from phone to typewriter to copy desk in a blur—yet he was different from most of his colleagues. Ricky Bloodworth wanted to be much more than just a reporter; he wanted to be an authentic character. He tried, at various times, panama hats, silken vests, a black eye-patch, saddle shoes, a Vandyke—nobody ever noticed. He even experimented with Turkish cigarettes (thinking it debonair) and wound up on a respirator at Mercy Hospital. Even those who disliked Bloodworth, and they were many, felt sorry for him; the poor guy wanted a quirk in the worst way. But, stylistically, the best he could do was to drum pencils and suck down incredible amounts of 7-Up. It wasn’t much, but it made him feel like he was contributing something to the newsroom’s energy bank.

    Ricky Bloodworth thought he’d done a respectable job on the first Sparky Harper story (given the deadlines), but now, on the morning of December 2, he was ready to roll. Harper’s ex-wives had to be found and interviewed, his coworkers had to be quizzed, and an array of semibereaved civic leaders stood ready to offer their thoughts on the heinous crime.

    But Dr. Allen came first. Ricky Bloodworth knew the phone number of the coroner’s office by heart; memorizing it was one of the first things he’d done after joining the paper.

    When Dr. Allen got on the line, Bloodworth asked, What’s your theory, Doc?

    Somebody tied up Sparky and made him swallow a rubber alligator, the coroner said.

    Cause of death?

    Asphyxiation.

    How do you know he didn’t swallow it on purpose?

    Did he cut off his own legs, too?

    You never know, Bloodworth said. "Maybe it started out as some kinky sex thing. Or maybe it was voodoo, all these Haitians we got now. Or santeria."

    Sparky was a Baptist, and the police are calling it a homicide.

    They’ve been wrong before.

    Ricky Bloodworth was not one of Dr. Allen’s favorite newspaper reporters. Dr. Allen regarded him as charmless and arrogant, There had been times, when the prospect of a front-page story loomed, that Dr. Allen could have sworn he saw flecks of foam on Bloodworth’s lips.

    Now the coroner listened to Bloodworth’s typing on the end of the phone line, and wondered how badly his quotes were being mangled.

    Ricky, he said impatiently. The victim’s wrists showed ligature marks—

    Any ten-year-old can tie himself up.

    And stuff himself in a suitcase?

    The typing got faster.

    The victim was already deceased when he was placed in the suitcase, Dr. Allen said. Is there anything else?

    What about the oil? One of the cops said the body was coated with oil.

    Not oil, Dr. Allen said. A combination of benzophenone, stearic acids, and lanolin.

    What’s that?

    Suntan lotion, the coroner said. With coconut butter.

    *   *   *

    Ricky Bloodworth was hammering away on his video terminal when he sensed a presence behind him. He turned slightly, and caught sight of Skip Wiley’s bobbing face. Even with a two-day stubble it was a striking visage: long, brown, and rugged-looking; a genetic marvel, every feature plagiarized from disparate ancestors. The cheekbones were high and sculptured, the nose pencil-straight but rather long and flat, the mouth upturned with little commas on each cheek, and the eyes disarming—small and keen, the color of strong coffee; full of mirth and something else. Skip Wiley was thirty-seven years old but he had the eyes of an old Gypsy.

    It made Bloodworth abnormally edgy and insecure when Skip Wiley read over his shoulder. Wiley wrote a daily column for the Sun and probably was the best-known journalist in Miami. Undeniably he was a gifted writer, but around the newsroom he was regarded as a strange and unpredictable character. Wiley’s behavior had lately become so odd that younger reporters who once sought his counsel were now fearful of his ravings, and they avoided him.

    Coconut butter? Wiley said gleefully. And no legs!

    Skip, please.

    Wiley rolled up a chair. I think you should lead with the coconut butter.

    Bloodworth felt his hands go damp.

    Wiley said, This is awful, Ricky: ‘Friends and colleagues of B. D. Harper expressed grief and outrage Tuesday ...’ Jesus Christ, who cares? Give them coconut oil!

    It’s a second day lead, Skip—

    Here we go again, Mr. Journalism School. Wiley was gnawing his lower lip, a habit manifested only when he composed a news story. You got some good details in here. The red Royal Tourister. The black Ray-Bans. That’s good, Ricky. Why don’t you toss out the rest of this shit and move the juicy stuff up top? Do your readers a favor, for once. Don’t make ’em go on a scavenger hunt for the goodies.

    Bloodworth was getting queasy. He wanted to defend himself, but it was lunacy to argue with Wiley.

    Maybe later, Skip. Right now I’m jammed up for the first edition.

    Wiley jabbed a pencil at the video screen, which displayed Bloodworth’s story in luminous green text. "Brutal? That’s not the adjective you want. When I think of brutal I think of chain saws, ice picks, ax handles. Not rubber alligators. No, that’s mysterious, wouldn’t you say?"

    "How about bizarre?"

    "A bit overworked these days, but not bad. When’s the last time you used bizarre?"

    I don’t recall, Skip.

    "Try last week, in that story about the Jacuzzi killing in Hialeah. Remember? So it’s too early to use bizarre again. I think mysterious is the ticket."

    Whatever you say, Skip.

    Wiley was boggling, when he wanted to be.

    What’s your theory, Ricky?

    Some sex thing, I guess. Sparky rents himself a bimbo, dresses up in this goofy outfit—

    Perhaps a little S-and-M?

    Yeah. Things go too far, he gags on the rubber alligator, the girl panics and calls for help. The muscle arrives, hacks up Sparky, crams the torso into the suitcase, and heaves it into Biscayne Bay. The goons grab the girl and take off in Sparky’s car.

    Wiley eyed him. So you don’t believe it’s murder?

    Accidental homicide. That’s my prediction. Bloodworth was starting to relax. Wiley was rocking the chair, a look of amusement on his face. Bloodworth noticed that Wiley’s long choppy mane was starting to show gray among the blond.

    Bloodworth said, a little more confidently, I think Harper’s death was a freak accident. I think the girl will come forward before too long, and that’ll be the end of it.

    Wiley chuckled. Well, it’s a damn good yarn. He stood up and pinched Ricky’s shoulder affectionately. "But I don’t have to tell you how to hit the hype button, do I?"

    For the first edition, Ricky Bloodworth moved the paragraph about the coconut oil higher in the story, and changed the word brutal to mysterious in the lead.

    The rest of the afternoon Bloodworth spent on the phone, gathering mawkish quotes about Sparky Harper, who seemed venerated by everyone except his former wives. As for blood relatives, the best Bloodworth could scrounge up was a grown son, a lawyer in Marco Island, who said of his father:

    He was a dreamer, and he honestly meant well.

    Not exactly a tearjerker, but Bloodworth stuck it in the story anyway.

    After finishing, he reread the piece once more. It had a nice flow, he thought, and the tone graduated smoothly: shock first, then outrage and, finally, sorrow.

    It’s good, a page-one contender, Bloodworth told himself as he walked down to the Coke machine.

    While he was away, Skip Wiley crept up and snatched the printout of the story off his desk. He was pretending to mark it up with a blue pencil when Bloodworth came back.

    What now, Skip?

    Your lead’s no good.

    "Come on, I told you—"

    "Hey, Ace, it’s not a second-day story anymore. Something broke while you were diddling around. News, they call it. Check with the police desk, you’ll see."

    What are you talking about?

    Wiley grinned as he tossed the pages into Ricky Bloodworth’s lap. The cops caught the guy, he said. Ten minutes ago.

    3

    Brian Keyes slouched on a worn bench in the lobby of the Dade County jail, waiting to see the creep the cops just caught. Keyes looked at his wristwatch and muttered. Twenty minutes. Twenty goddamn minutes since he’d given his name to the dull-eyed sergeant behind the bullet-proof glass.

    Keyes had run into this problem before; it had something to do with the way he looked. Although he stood five-ten, a respectable height, he somehow failed to exude the authority so necessary for survival in rough bars, alleys, police stations, jails, and McDonald’s drive-throughs. Keyes was adolescently slender, with blue eyes and a smooth face. He looked younger than his thirty-two years, which, in his line of work, was no particular asset. An ex-girlfriend once said, on her way out the door, that he reminded her of a guy who’d just jumped the wall of a Jesuit seminary. To disguise his boyishness, Brian Keyes had today chosen a brown suit with a finely striped Cardin tie. He was clean-shaven and his straight brown hair was neatly combed. Still, he had a feeling that his overall appearance was inadequate—not slick enough to be a lawyer, not frazzled enough to be a social worker, and not old enough to be a private investigator. Which he actually was.

    So the turtle-eyed sergeant ignored him.

    Keyes was surrounded by misery. On his left, a rotund Latin woman wailed into an embroidered handkerchief and nibbled on a rosary. "Pobrecito, he’s in yail again."

    On the other side, an anemic-looking teenager with yellow teeth carved an obscenity into the bench with a Phillips screwdriver. Keyes studied him neutrally until the kid looked up and snapped, My brother’s in for agg assault!

    You must be very proud, Keyes said.

    This place never changed. The hum and clang of the electronic doors were enough to split your skull, but the mayhem in the lobby was worse, worse even than the cell blocks. The lobby was crawling with bitter, bewildered souls, each on the sad trail of a loser. Girlfriends, ex-wives, mothers, brothers, bondsmen, lawyers, pimps, parole officers.

    And me, Keyes thought. The public defender’s office had tried to make the case sound interesting, but Keyes figured it had to be a lost cause. There’d be some publicity, which he didn’t need, and decent money, which he did. This was a big-time case, all right. Some nut hacks up the president of the Chamber of Commerce and dumps him in the bay—just what South Florida needed, another grisly murder. Keyes wondered if the dismemberment fad would ever pass.

    From the governor on down, everybody had wanted this one solved fast. And the cops had come through.

    Mr. Keyes! The sergeant’s voice echoed from a cheap speaker in the ceiling.

    Keyes signed the log, clipped on a plastic visitor’s badge, and walked through three sets of noisy iron gates. A trusty accompanied him into an elevator that smelled like an NFL locker room. The elevator stopped on the fifth floor.

    Ernesto Cabal, alias Little Ernie, alias No-Way José, was sitting disconsolately on the crapper when the trusty opened the cell for Brian Keyes.

    Ernesto held out a limp, moist hand. Keyes sat down on a wooden folding chair.

    You speak English?

    Sure, Ernesto said. "I been here sixteen years. By here I mean here, dees country. He pulled up his pants, flushed the john, and stretched out on a steel cot. They say I kill dees man Harper."

    That’s what they say.

    I dint.

    Ernesto was a small fellow, sinewy and tough-looking, except for the eyes. A lot of cons had rabbit eyes, but not this one, Keyes thought. Ernesto’s brown eyes were large and wet. Scared puppy eyes.

    Keyes opened his briefcase.

    You a lawyer, Mr. Keyes?

    Nope. I’m an investigator. I was hired by your lawyers to help you.

    Yeah?

    That’s right.

    You’re a very young guy to be an investigator, Ernesto said. How old? Dirty, dirty-one?

    Good guess.

    Ernesto sat up. You any good?

    "No, I’m totally incompetent. A complete moron. Now I’ve got a question for you, chico. Did you do it?"

    I tole you. No.

    Fine. Keyes opened a manila file and scanned a pink tissue copy of the arrest report.

    Ernesto leaned over for a peek. I know what that is, man.

    Good, then explain it.

    See, I was driving dees car and the policeman, he pull me over on a routine traffic stop ...

    Oh boy, Keyes thought, routine traffic stop. This guy’s been here before.

    ... and told me I’m driving a stolen be-hickle. And the next thin I know I’m in jail and dey got me charged with first-degree murder and robbery and everythin else.

    Keyes asked, How did you come to be driving a 1984 Oldsmobile Delta 88?

    I bought it.

    I see. Ernesto, what do you do for a living?

    I sell fruit.

    Oh.

    Maybe you see me at rush hour. On LeJeune Road. I sell fresh fruit in bags.

    Somewhere down the cell block another prisoner started to bang on the bars and scream that his TV was broken.

    Keyes said, Ernesto, how much does your very best bag of fruit sell for? Top-of-the-line?

    Mangoes or cassavas?

    Whatever. The best.

    Maybe one dollar ... oh, I see what you getting at. Okay, yeah, that’s right, I doan make much money. But I got some great buy on this Oldsmobile. You can’t believe it.

    Probably not.

    I got it from a black guy.

    For?

    Two hundred bucks.

    Ernesto seemed to sense he was losing ground. Some buy. I dint believe it either.

    Keyes shrugged. I didn’t say I didn’t believe you. Now, according to the police, you were arrested on Collins Avenue on Miami Beach. You ran a series of red lights.

    It was tree in the morning. No one was out.

    Where did you meet the man who sold you the car?

    Right dare on Collins. Two nights before I got busted. I met him a few blocks from the Fountain-blow. Dare’s a city parking lot where I hang.

    The one where you do all your B-and-E’s?

    Shit, you just like the policeman.

    I need to know everything, Ernesto, otherwise I can’t help. Okay, so you’re hanging out, breaking into cars and ripping off Blaupunkts, whatever, and up drives this black guy in a new Olds and says, ‘Hey, Emie, wanna buy this baby for two bills?’ That about it?

    Yeah, ’cept he dint know my name.

    Keyes said, I don’t suppose you asked the gentleman where he got the car?

    Ernesto laughed—a muskrat mouth, full of small yellow teeth—and shook his head no.

    Don’t suppose you asked his name, either?

    No, man.

    And I don’t suppose you’d recognize him if you ever saw him again?

    Ernesto leaned forward and rubbed his chin intently. A great gesture, Keyes thought. Cagney in White Heat.

    I see dis guy somewhere before, Ernesto said. I doan know where, but I know the face. Big guy. Big black guy. Gold chain, Carrera frames, nice-looking guy. Arms like this, like a foking boa constripper. Yeah, I’d know him if I saw him again. Sure.

    Keyes said, You had a remote suspicion that the car was hot, didn’t you?

    Ernesto nodded sheepishly.

    Why didn’t you unload it?

    I was going to, man. Another day or two it’d be gone bye-bye. But it was such a great car ... aw, you wouldn’t know about thins like that, man. You prolly got a Rolls-Royce or somethin. I never had a nice car like that. I wanted to cruise around for a while, that’s all. I woulda fenced it eventually.

    Keyes put the file back in the briefcase. He took out a recent photograph of B. D. Harper.

    Ever seen this man, Ernesto?

    No. The puppy eyes didn’t even flicker.

    Ever killed anybody?

    On purpose?

    On purpose, by accident, any way.

    No, sir! Ernesto said crisply. Once I shot a guy in the balls. Want to know why?

    No thanks. I read all about it on your rap sheet. A personal dispute, I believe.

    That is right.

    Keyes rose to leave and called for a guard. Then he thought of something else. Ernesto, he said, do you believe in black magic?

    The little Cuban grinned. "Santeria? Sure. I doan go to those thins, but it be stupid to say I do not believe. My uncle was a santero, a priest. One time he brought a skull and some pennies to my mother’s house. He killed a chicken in the backyard—with his teeth he killed dis chicken—and then dipped the pennies in its blood. Two days later the landlord dropped dead. Ernesto Cabal made a chopping motion with his hand. Juss like that."

    You know what I’m getting at, don’t you?

    "Yes, Mr. Keyes. I never heard of no santero using suntan oil for anythin ..."

    Keyes started to laugh. Okay, Ernesto. I’ll be in touch.

    Don’t you forget about me, Mr. Keyes. Dis is a bad place for an innocent man.

    *   *   *

    Brian Keyes left the jail and walked around the corner to Metro-Dade police headquarters, another bad place for an innocent man. He shared the elevator with a tall female patrol officer who did a wonderful job of pretending not to notice him. She got off on the second floor. Keyes went all the way up to Homicide.

    Al Garcia greeted him with a grin and a soft punch on the shoulder. Coffee?

    Please, Keyes said. Garcia was much friendlier since Keyes had left the newspaper. In the old days he was like a sphinx; now he’d start yakking and never shut up. Keyes thought it might be different this time around.

    How’s business? Garcia asked.

    Not great, Al.

    Takes time. You only been at it—what?—two years. And there’s plenty of competition in this town.

    No fooling, Keyes thought. He had arrived in Miami in 1979 from a small newspaper in suburban Baltimore. There was nothing original about why he’d left for Florida—a better job, no snow, plenty of sunshine. On his first day at the Miami Sun, Keyes had been assigned the desk next to Skip Wiley—the newsroom equivalent of Parris Island. Keyes covered cops for a while, then courts, then local politics. His reporting had been solid, his writing workmanlike but undistinguished. The editors never questioned his ability, only his stomach.

    There were two stories commonly told about Brian Keyes at the Miami Sun. The first happened a year after his arrival, when a fully loaded 727 fireballed down in Florida Bay. Keyes had rented an outboard and sped to the scene, and he’d filed a superb story, full of gripping detail. But they’d damn near had to hospitalize him afterward: for six months Keyes kept hallucinating that burned arms and legs were reaching out from under his bedroom furniture.

    The second anecdote was the most well-known. Even Al Garcia knew about Callie Davenport. She was a four-year-old girl who’d been kidnapped from nursery school by a deranged sprinkler repairman. The lunatic had thrown her into a truck, driven out to the Glades, and murdered her. After some deer hunters found the body, Cab Mulcahy, the managing editor, had told Brian Keyes to go interview Callie Davenport’s grief-stricken parents. Keyes had written a real heartbreaker, too, just like the old man wanted. But that same night he’d marched into Mulcahy’s office and quit. When Keyes rushed out of the newsroom, everyone could see he’d been crying. That young man, Skip Wiley had said, watching him go, is too easily horrified to be a great journalist.

    Besides Keyes himself, Skip Wiley was the only person in the world who knew the real reason for the tears. But he wasn’t telling.

    A few months later Keyes got his private investigator’s license, and his newspaper friends were amused. They wondered how the hell he was going to hold together, working for a bunch of sleazoid lawyers and bail bondsmen. Brian Keyes wondered too, and wound up avoiding the rough cases. The cases that really paid.

    Still doing divorces? Al Garcia asked.

    Here and there. Keyes hated to admit it, but that’s what covered the rent: he’d gotten damn good at staking out nooner motels with his three-hundred-millimeter Nikon. That was another reason for Al García’s affability. Last year he had hired Brian Keyes to get the goods on his new son-in-law. García despised the kid, and was on the verge of outright murdering him when he called Keyes for help. Keyes had done a hell of a job, too. Tracked the little stud to a VD clinic in Homestead. García’s daughter wasn’t thrilled by the news, but Al was. The divorce went through in four weeks, a new Dade County record.

    Now Brian Keyes had a friend for life.

    García poured the coffee. So you got a biggie, Brian.

    Tell me about it.

    It’s a touchy one. Can’t say much, especially now that you’re lined up with the other side.

    Did you work the Harper case?

    "Hell, everybody up here worked that case."

    Keyes tried to sip the coffee and nearly boiled his upper lip.

    Hey, García said, that piece-of-shit rag newspaper you used to work for finally printed something intelligent this morning. You see it?

    My paper was in a puddle.

    Ha! You should have read it anyway. Wiley, the asshole that writes that column. I hate that guy normally—I really can’t stand him. But today he did okay.

    Keyes didn’t want to talk about Skip Wiley.

    He wrote about this case, García went on. About that little scuzzball we arrested.

    I’ll be sure to get a copy, Keyes said.

    I mean, it wasn’t a hundred percent right, there was a few things he screwed up, but overall he did an okay job. I clipped it out and taped it on the refrigerator. I want my boy to read it when he gets home from school. Let him see what his old man does for a living.

    I’m sure he’ll get a charge out of it, Al. Tell me about Ernesto Cabal.

    Dirtbag burglar.

    Was he on your list of suspects?

    Garcia said, What do you mean?

    I mean, you’ve got thirty detectives working on this murder, right? You must have had a list of suspects.

    Not on this one.

    "So what we’re talking about is blind luck. Some Beach cop nails the guy for running a traffic light and, bingo, there’s Mr. Sparky Harper’s missing

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