The problem with this was that the fingerprints had been digested away. They had the guy's toes, but nobody, not even the FBI, kept toe prints on file. Agent Webb planned to write up a memo on that subject as soon as he got back to Washington.
Anything, to make sure they never sent him to the Everglades again to search for a missing hand.
The other Nogeira hand had been bitten off. It was not in the alligator's stomach. The Bureau, to cover its bureaucratic ass, needed that hand to positively establish the identity of General Nogeira. Not that anybody doubted the corpse's identity. It was just that including a paragraph affirming a positive fingerprint ID was essential to perserving the Bureau's tattered reputation.
"Why can't we just go with dental records?" Webb had asked, when the problem was dropped in his lap.
"Nobody has them," he was told. "They can't find them down in Bananama, and Nogeira never saw the prison dentist. We need those prints, Dick."
Which left Dick Webb to wade through the malodorous Everglades in search of a hand that was probably alligator shit by now.
"I just hope I don't end up the same way," he grumbled to his alligator-spotter.
"Not as long as I'm here," said the firearms instructor on loan from Quantico, who was hunkered down on a spongy isle. "Uh-oh," he added suddenly.
Webb froze. "Gator?"
"No," said the marksman, bringing his sniper scope to his eyes. "I think it's a jellyfish."
"Jelly- Wait!"
Dick Webb's frantic shout came to late. The first shot got off.
"Miss!" The marksman said in disgust.
"Hold your damn fire!" said Dick Webb, wading like mad, no longer caring if gators lurked under the surface or not. He didn't know much about the glades, but he did know they didn't exactly swarm with jellyfish. Webb spotted the translucent white thing as it turned in the lazy current.
With a stick, he lifted it clear of the water. Delicately, he opened the flimsy thing. It dripped. Dripped from every limp appendage. Webb counted five-four long and one short.
"This is it! This is it!" he crowed.
"What?"
Webb turned. "It's a skin glove!" he cried, wading back. "It's a perfect skin glove!"
"What the hell is a 'skin glove'?" the marksman wondered.
"We find them in waters where floaters turn up," Webb explained. "A body in the water a long time will shed its outer skin layer, like a snake. This is Nogeira's hand skin. We call it a glove."
The marksman scratched his head. "Can you get prints off it?"
"Abso-fucking-lutely!" chortled Dick Webb, relieved now that his chances of becoming alligator excrement seemed to have dropped into negative numbers. "It's all over. This will close out the case."
Agent Dick Webb waded back to dry land, with no idea how wrong he was.
Chapter 26
Harmon Cashman was panic-stricken.
He had opened every drawer, and found none. He had checked the hotel room minibar. He had looked under the bed and between the rumpled sheets.
It was three A.M., and he had been up poring over polls and focus-group studies all night. The night had started on an up note. His candidate, the candidate of hope, Enrique Espiritu Esperanza, was riding high in the polls. He was not a shoo-in yet, but he looked good. It was great to be honchoing a major campaign once again-even if it was just a statewide run.
But once it was over, Harmon told himself, the sky was the limit. Where was it written that an Hispanic couldn't be President?
But that would be later. First he had to satisfy his bodily craving, before it drove him mad.
Hurrying down the hall to Esperanza's hotel room, he banged on the door, yelling, "Ricky! Ricky! Wake up!"
Hastily gathering a terry-cloth robe about his generous frame, Enrique Esperanza appeared in the door, his smooth brown face disturbed, like a cherub with hemorrhoids.
"Harmon! Amigo! What is it?"
Harmon Cashman grabbed the terry cloth with both fists. "We're out of cookies! Completely, totally, unforgivably out!"
"Come in, come in."
Harmon paced the room, saying, "This has never happened before! I must be losing my touch. You know how I manage everything to the last decimal. And now this!"
"Calm yourself, my friend. Sit. Please."
Harmon sat. His eyes skated around the room. His hands shook.
"You are nervous," came the soothing alto voice of Esperanza. "It is understandable. The election nears. All of your hopes are riding on the outcome."
"How can you be so calm at a time like this!" Harmon shrieked.
"I have been thinking. It is time to adopt new tactics."
Harmon Cashman's eyes cleared. "You nuts? We're doing great! Black is hiding in his attic, and Ripper's flat on her can. She's a laughingstock. They're both laughingstocks."
"A lot can change in a week, my friend. Listen, we have been conducting a retail campaign to date."
"Yeah. Personal appearances. A lot of glad-handing. Pure grassroots politicking. Word of mouth is our best friend."
"I now wish to go wholesale," said Enrique Esperanza.
"TV ads? I don't know. I mean people respond to you in personal appearances. And the radio spots are doing well . . . ."
"I wish to appear in my TV ads."
Harmon Cashman gulped. "Ricky, no. It's not the same. You've got charisma. It's pheromones, or something. But I guarantee you, it won't work over the air. Radio interviews, sure. But not TV. Let's face it, it'll still be a trick get a Hispanic into the governorship."
"It is a trick I am convinced we can accomplish," Enrique Esperanza said forcefully.
Harmon Cashman shook his head stubbornly. "No chance. I'm campaign manager, and I say no. That's final. "