Sirens descending on Red Citrus RV Park was bad enough, but when Harris Squires saw red eyes breach the water’s surface, glowing twenty yards behind him, he felt a charge of panic beyond anything he had ever experienced, aware that he was about to lose one of his legs, maybe worse.
Squires understood what those eyes meant because of all the nights he’d spent hunting in the Everglades or getting stoned and plinking away at gators in ponds that dotted his four hundred acres.
Fifi was back. The biggest damn gator Squires had ever seen in his life was still alive, watching him, her eyes glowing in the light of a lantern that someone had brought so the two white guys could give first aid to that nosy old drunk, Carlson.
Squires tried to scream, but his voice managed only a high-pitched yelp, as his legs and arms went into hyperflight, trying to free himself from the muck. It was like one of those sweaty damn nightmares he sometimes had when he stacked testosterone and Tren. Nightmares in which he’d try to run, or call for help, but his body was dead, unable to respond.
Mired up to his thighs in mud produced the same sickening terror. He was desperate to run and he was trying… he even managed to get his right leg free. But then Squires felt a tearing pain in the back of his leg and realized he’d pulled a hamstring muscle.
The pain brought his voice back, and he yelled to the cluster of men, only a few yards away on the bank, “The gator! The gator’s after me! Throw me that goddamn rope again!”
Suddenly, someone on shore turned on the Golight. The dazzling beam confirmed that the gator was swimming toward him, and Squires felt like vomiting, he was so scared.
Four times, the Mexicans had lobbed coils of clothesline to him. But each time the rope wasn’t strong enough, or the men weren’t strong enough, and the rope had broken or pulled free.
This time, though, a Mexican with some brains had produced commercial-grade nylon with a weight taped to the end. When he lobbed it, the coil went sailing over Squires’s head but landed close enough for him to grab the rope before it sank.
As Squires looped the rope around his chest, he risked another glance over his shoulder, and there was Fifi, gliding closer. Her eyes were a ruby pendulum, swinging with every stroke of her tail.
Squires whirled toward the bank and hollered, “Pull, you dumbasses! Don’t you see that goddamn gator? For God’s sake, pull!” He began to thrash with his arms, trying to help the men tractor him the few yards to safety.
At first, there must have been a dozen Mexicans on the bank willing to help him after the Bible-freak girl had ordered them to do it. When the sirens became audible, however, half of the little cowards had gone scrambling. Now there were only four little men onshore, in jeans and ball caps, all hitched to the rope, and they leaned against Squires’s weight.
“Pull! Get your asses moving!” Squires screamed. “Jesus Christ, she’s coming faster!”
The first heave of the rope yanked Squires forward. Another heave flipped him onto his back so that his eyes were fixated on the alligator when his left shoe finally popped free of the mud and he began to float toward the bank.
Now Squires’s mind returned to nightmare mode, and everything happened in terrible slow motion. He was flailing with his arms, screaming for the men to move faster, while sirens and lights converged overhead, filling his head with a chaos so overwhelming he could barely hear his own voice. The night sky echoed with throbbing lights that were the exact same piercing red as the alligator’s eyes.
Fifi was so close now that Squires could see the black width of her head. The animal pushed a wall of water ahead of her that lifted his body as she closed on him, which caused Squires to roll his body into a fetal ball, preparing himself for what was going to happen next.
“Get me out of here, goddamn you!” Squires voice broke as he pleaded, and he rolled to his stomach, unable to watch as the gator’s mouth opened to take him, the animal a massive darkness only a few yards away.
As he turned, he realized he was close enough to touch the bank, where weeds were knee-deep. He lunged, got a fistful of grass in both hands and tried to pull himself out. He was too heavy, though, and roots ripped away from the earth, causing him to fall back into the water butt first.
As Squires hit the water, everything was still happening in slow motion. He got a snapshot look at three figures running toward him. It was the Bible-freak Mexican girl and the two white guys, the hippie two steps ahead of the guy named Ford. Ford appeared to have stopped for some reason, maybe to fish something from his pocket, but the girl and the hippie were coming fast. But then Squires didn’t see anything else because he closed his eyes as he fell backward and landed on Fifi, who felt wide and buoyant in the water.
An instant later, Squires endured a watery explosion beneath him. He floundered for a few seconds, then he felt bony hands on his shoulder and realized someone was trying to drag his weight up the bank but wasn’t having much success.
Squires used his fingers to claw at the sand as he crawled out of the water, picturing the gator opening its jaws again to snap off one of his legs, but it didn’t happen because then he heard: WHAP-WHAP!
Two more gunshots.
Several long minutes later, Squires was on his knees, breathing heavily, aware that headlights of an ambulance and two emergency vehicles now illuminated the area like a stage.
He heard men’s voices calling sharp orders, one of them yelling, “Put the weapon on the ground. Step away and show me your hands. Do it now!” Then he heard the same voice, louder, say, “Show me your goddamn hands and walk toward me!”
An asshole cop. It had to be-no one but a cop could mix contempt and authority in quite the same way. But Squires realized they were yelling at the big guy, Ford, not him, which was a relief. It gave him some hope.
The hippie was trying to help Squires to his feet, but Squires yanked his elbow away, saying, “Get your goddamn hands off me!” but then winced when he tried to take a step. He hissed, “Shit,” because the back of his right leg was knotted and hurt like hell because of the pulled hamstring.
The hippie said to him, “Are you okay? Did it bite you? That was damn close, man!”
Squires put some weight on his leg and took a few experimental steps, watching the big guy walk toward a semicircle of cops and EMTs, holding his hands high. Then he listened to Ford say in the distance, “The injured man’s over there, he needs attention right away. An alligator grabbed him, I don’t know how bad. Then it came back after the big guy. That’s why I had to use a weapon.”
It had been a bad night so far, but Squires decided this might be a chance to turn things around. He pushed the hippie away and started toward the cops, limping barefooted, straightening himself, trying to look respectable despite his slimy knee-length shorts and muscle T-shirt.
He waited until he was sure the cops were looking in his direction before saying, “I’m the manager, I own this place. I was hoping you boys would show up. That asshole right there”-he pointed at Ford-“almost got me killed, the way he was banging off rounds from that little pistol of his. Hell, maybe he did kill someone. We should have a look around. Check on the units and make sure one of my tenants isn’t hurt.”
Squires made a point of ignoring Ford, who was staring at him now. For some reason, the scientist had a quizzical expression on his face, not amused, not pissed off, but interested, like Squires was some kind of bug.
It was weird the way the man appeared so relaxed, not the least bit worried, despite the guns the cops had now lowered, which caused Squires to remember that maybe Ford and the hippie were part of some DEA sting. Maybe they were even friends with these cops, who might be playing some kind of game.
Cops did shit like that all the time when they had their sights set on busting an underground steroids lab. Or so Squires had read on the Internet bodybuilder forums. It was law enforcement’s way of sticking their noses where they didn’t belong.
When one of the cops said to Squires, “Stop right there, no closer,” Squires did, then listened to the man ask, “What’s your name?”
Squires told him, deciding suddenly it was better to be friendly if Ford was DEA, which is why he added, “But I got no hard feelings against the dude. Maybe he was just trying to help me save that poor drunk over there-”
Squires looked toward the bank, where EMTs were already working on Carlson. There wasn’t a chilie or a chula around now, he noticed. They’d all disappeared except for the weird little Jesus freak, who was pestering the EMTs about the old drunk, probably getting in their way.
Behind him, Squires heard the hippie call to the cops, “Why the hell do you have your guns out? Big tough guys-you’re afraid of a couple of unarmed men and a little kid?”
The hippie said it in an irritated, cop-hater tone, which, to Squires, was more proof that these guys were working undercover for the feds.
Squires used the opening as an excuse to snap at the hippie, saying, “Shut your mouth, these guys know what they’re doing. Let them do their damn jobs!” which might earn him some brownie points with the cops.
Squires hoped so. He felt a welling chemical anxiety inside his head, probably caused by steroids mixing with adrenaline, no doubt the result of that goddamn gator coming so close to biting his ass off. Plus, there was the not-so-small matter of the dead Mexican girl’s body somewhere on the bottom of the lake.
Christ, when he remembered the dead body, Squires felt like he might vomit again, he was so nervous.
The bodybuilder stood there, shifting from his bad leg to his good leg, trying to appear as calm as the nerdy scientist. He watched carefully as the cops talked to Ford in a low voice, and then he felt another jolt when Ford not only lowered his hands but then shook hands with someone who stepped out of the shadows. Another cop, maybe, although the man wasn’t wearing a uniform.
As the two uniforms holstered their weapons, Squires thought, Oh shit, and took a look around. The hippie was walking toward the cops, a pissed-off expression on his face until he saw that the cops had put their guns away, which caused the hippie to relax a little. It gave the skinny dude time to reassess, which is probably why he turned his attention toward Squires.
“What kind of lost soul are you?” the hippie asked, walking toward him. “What do you mean, we helped you save that man? You didn’t do a damn thing but interfere! We just saved your life, and this is how you act?”
The hippie was talking loud enough for the cops to hear if they wanted, but they appeared to be busy with Ford.
Squires decided it was better to deal with the hippie privately before someone started paying attention. So he limped toward the dude, who looked ridiculous, in Squires’s opinion, with his droopy surfer shorts, his skinny little muscles and his ribs showing.
When he was close enough, Squires said to him, “Look, I don’t want any more trouble here. You play nice, I’ll play nice. How’s that sound to you?”
A confused expression appeared on the hippie’s face as he replied, “If that’s supposed to mean something, man, I don’t follow. What the hell you talking about?”
Squires told him, “I’m willing to cooperate,” his voice low now. “I know who you are. I think I know why you’re here. I’ll help set the bust up, if that’s the way you want to play it. You think those cops wouldn’t like to take down a major supplier? Hell yes, they would. One word from me, it could happen.”
Squires was thinking of giving the feds Laziro Victorino, the gangbanger who sold dope on the side, which seemed like a smart way to kill two birds with one stone. Plus, the V-man had shot those snuff films, too, which was a hell of a lot bigger deal than busting a small steroids operation like his.
Maybe the hippie would admit he was DEA, maybe he wouldn’t. Squires was watching the man’s reaction to see.
The expression on the hippie’s face changed from confusion to mild concern. “Who’ve you been talking to? Did you bully your tenants into giving information about me? Turned them into narcs?”
When Squires didn’t answer immediately, the hippie almost lost it. “That sucks, man! It really sucks. There’s nothing lower than a damn narc, in my opinion. These people come here with zero money, they need to make a buck, so what’s it matter to you? That’s really small-time bullshit-and I just helped save your ass. You could be dying right now! Getting your bad-karma ticket punched for hell. Instead, you’re threatening me!”
It took Squires a moment to realize what the hippie was saying. He put the words together with all those crisp twenties in the hippie’s billfold and started smiling. Squires couldn’t help himself. The damn hippie didn’t work for the DEA. The dude was worried about getting busted himself!
Suddenly, Squires felt back in control. Well… sort of. He still had his girlfriend, Frankie, to worry about, and that gangbanger Victorino. The V-man was scary, but Frankie scared him more. There was no telling the amount of crap the woman would dump on him once she’d heard the cops had been snooping around the lake.
The lake. What lay on the bottom of that lake was Squires’s biggest worry. It caused him to look toward the water, where the mangrove trees looked yellow in the bright ambulance lights, the water black as asphalt. What if they wanted to recover the alligator’s body and decided to drag the pond?
Squires’s smile faded for an instant but then returned. Nope, they wouldn’t need to drag the pond. Because now Squires noticed two cops, one of them lying on the bank, trying to get a rope around something that Squires realized was the gator’s tail.
Good! Fifi was dead-the fat pig deserved it, after attacking him. Shit, after all the times he’d fed her chunks of pig, once a whole yearling deer? And then the animal turns on him!
The scientist probably couldn’t shoot worth a shit, but he’d finally gotten lucky with his little lady’s pistol. True, Squires had been counting on the gator to get rid of the dead girl’s body, and maybe Fifi already had, which struck him as an encouraging possibility.
At first it did, anyway-until he thought it through.
What if the cops took the gator to the Wildlife people? What if the Wildlife cops opened Fifi’s belly to have a look?
Damn it!
Squires hadn’t thought of that and he felt sick again. What if the gator had eaten the Mexican girl’s body? Or even a few pieces? The cops would come storming back here with search warrants and handcuffs, and that would be the end of him.
Jesus Christ, he couldn’t let that happen. Not with the Bible-freak girl still around to testify that she’d seen him drag that heavy sack to the water. If it wasn’t for her, it would be easy enough to play dumb and let the cops blame the V-man. Or any one of the hundreds of other drunken Mexicans who lived in the area. That would be the natural direction to go. Wetbacks killed wettails, right? It happened all the time.
Squires took a look around. The girl had disappeared. Where? She had been kneeling by Carlson. Didn’t seem the least bit concerned that the cops could ask for her ID, find out she was an illegal and take her skinny ass into custody. Not just illegal but underage at that, which meant she’d probably end up in some state orphanage.
Stupid little Mexican.
Squires felt pressure building in his head again as he fumed about the girl, a nobody wettail who could have him jailed if she decided, maybe even send him to the electric chair. It made him furious to think that one little Mexican had so much power over him.
Squires became even more determined to fulfill his fantasy…
A voice interrupted. “Why were you staring at that child? What’s going on in the twisted brain of yours?”
Squires realized the hippie was talking to him. He turned, surprised, and a little pissed off. He studied the hippie, seeing the seriousness in the guy’s Jesus-looking eyes, also seeing how scrawny the dude was, easy enough to snap the man’s body in two if he wanted.
“She’s a chick, not a child, you dumbass,” Squires said to him, and then enjoyed the guy’s reaction.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” the hippie said, but in a sort of testing way.
“Bullshit, I don’t. You ever seen a boy with pretty little knockers so firm they could poke your damn eye out?”
The hippie took a step toward him. “Why would you even say something so disgusting?”
Squires was loving the look of outrage. “Because it’s true,” he told the guy. “Tonight, that little girl and me had a nice conversation while she was in the trailer taking herself a bath. That’s some tight little ass she’s got for a wettail that young.”
The hippie said, “Wettail?” then started walking toward Squires, the dude’s eyes a little crazy. “You lay a hand on that girl, I’ll see you in prison. You stay away from her or I’ll…”
“Or you’ll what? Try and scratch my eyes out?” Squires used a Screw you smile to make the guy madder, hoping the dude would take a swing at him while there were plenty of witnesses right there watching.
“Have an illegal Mexican girl squeal to the cops?”
The look of frustration on the hippie’s face was an awesome thing to see. “Go ahead, tell the cops I was watching the girl take a bath. Let’s see how long it takes for them to ship your little pal’s ass back to shithole Mexico.”
Squires flipped his middle finger at the dude, turned and made a quick trip to his double-wide, where he hid the cash he had stolen from the hippie and the hippie’s asshole friend.
He stuck the money under the false bottom of a drawer, with stacks of twenties, fifties and hundreds he and Frankie had amassed from selling Gator Juice. Probably more than fifty thousand there.
Frankie would know the exact amount. Harris Squires seldom had the patience to count it.
An hour later, with all the lights and cameras and Florida Wildlife vehicles arriving, Harris was thinking that killing an alligator was a bigger deal than killing a person.
He had overheard one of the cops telling a reporter that unless it was a life-or-death situation, harming or harassing a gator could mean a year in jail and up to a four-thousand-dollar fine.
Good. He hoped they took Ford away in handcuffs.
It didn’t look like it was going to happen, though, the way the cops had been treating the bastard. They’d hauled the drunk, Carlson, away in an ambulance, but not before Carlson had told them that Ford and the hippie had saved his life. Carlson was probably the only witness the nerd needed, but the little Bible-freak girl had seen the whole thing, too. Not that she’d stuck around long after the ambulance left.
Where was she? Squires was getting nervous, thinking that maybe the girl would grab her things and disappear from Red Citrus. Or maybe the cops had taken her away to question her privately.
Damn it! That was a possibility. Could be she was telling them right now what she’d seen Squires doing the night before.
No telling how long before the little brat talked, if it happened. It was something he would have to deal with later, though, because what Squires was doing right now was sitting in the backseat of a squad car, answering questions. There were two cops, a chunky guy in uniform and a Latin-looking woman wearing a white blouse tucked into a dark skirt, a regular professional ball breaker. Squires knew it the moment he set eyes on her.
The woman cop, whose name was Specter, was making notes as Squires told her his version of what had happened. In his version, he had been the hero, not Ford, which didn’t get a response from the woman, and that worried him. Had they put him in the squad car to ask about the gator? Or to question him about what he had dumped into the pond the night before? Or maybe, just maybe, one of the nosy cops had taken a peek into his double-wide trailer and seen the steroids kitchen with its propane tanks and chemical jars everywhere.
Squires was feeling twitchy as the woman finally sat back to comment instead of just asking questions. She turned toward the backseat and said, “It’s strange-the man the alligator attacked? The victim had no recollection of you being involved in any way, Mr. Squires. Dr. Ford and Dr. Tomlinson both tell stories that are very different from yours. I’m wondering why that is.”
The hippie was a doctor, too?
Jesus Christ, Squires thought, there must be colleges out there giving diplomas away to any idiot who can fill out the forms.
Squires told the woman, “Let me tell you about that guy, Carlson. He’s lived here for more than two years. He’s a drunk and a paint huffer. He’s out of his mind most the time. You know what a paint huffer is?”
The woman wrote something on a pad before she replied, “We’ve got another problem. Do you have any idea what that problem might be?”
Squires could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He looked out the window, seeing a tow truck in the bright lights, where a Wildlife cop was taking video as the crane winched Fifi slowly off the ground, all twelve or thirteen feet of her.
Squires was wondering if the back door of the squad car had locked automatically. If not, maybe the smartest thing he could do right now was make a run for it. Hide out for the night, then call Frankie and have her take him to the hunting camp, a place where he could hide and think things over in peace.
Squires put his hand on the door handle, thought about it another few seconds, then changed his mind. Once Frankie heard what had happened, she’d flip out. Hell, the woman would probably turn him over to the cops herself. Besides, how far would he get with a pulled hamstring?
Squires rubbed at the back of his leg and said, “All I know is, if I don’t get some ice on my leg, I’m not going to be able to walk tomorrow. How screwed up is that? I help save the life of one of my drunken tenants and I end up crippled for a week. I’m a professional athlete, which I don’t expect you to know. I’m training for the Mr. South Florida, which is in Clearwater Beach, this June, so an injury like a pulled hammie can be pretty serious if I don’t take care of it.”
The woman cop said, “Just a few more questions, Mr. Squires. There’s something else I want to ask you about, this problem I mentioned-”
Squires felt himself getting mad, which he knew wasn’t smart, but he couldn’t help himself from cutting her off, saying, “Miz Specter, we’ve all got problems. All I know is, I need some ice. I save a man’s life, now you’re talking to me like I’m some kind of criminal. I don’t want to get tough about it, but you’re on my private property. And if I need medical attention-a bag of ice, I’m saying-then I should be able to-”
The male cop interrupted, sounding like a wiseass, telling him, “You own a trailer park and you’re a bodybuilder. That’s a handy combination.”
What the hell did that mean?
Squires was telling himself, Stay cool, don’t let the prick make you mad, as he corrected the guy, saying, “I own three mobile home parks, not trailer parks. A trailer’s something you use to haul stuff, not live in. We offer manufactured homes and RV sites. It’s what I do in my spare time.”
“You’re the owner?” the cop asked. “I called the address in, and it came back a women named Harriet Ray Squires owns this place.”
“Same thing,” Squires replied. “But we’re trying to get out of the business, which you can probably understand, seeing the type of shit we have to put up with. Three acres of back-bay waterfront, only a couple miles from Fort Myers Beach. That’ll be some serious money once we clear these units off and sell the place.”
The cop wasn’t done badgering him, though. “So you work for mom when you’re not earning a living doing the muscle shows. What steroids are you stacking?” The cop said it, trying to sound like he knew something about the subject.
The cop continued, “The show you’re training for is in June?”
“Mr. South Florida,” Squires replied.
The cop said, “Four months away from a show, you’re still on your bulking cycle, right? Let me guess, you’re doing about a thousand milligrams of testosterone mixed with, what, D-bol? Primo? I hear anavar is big with you guys once you start cutting.”
What Squires wanted to do was tell this know-it-all asshole, Primo is for pussies, which was true, in his opinion, even if it was one of Arnold’s favorite steroids.
Instead, he calmed himself with a familiar lie, saying, “I tried that crap a few years back, but the side effects scared the hell out of me. Plus, they do urine tests now. Steroids are illegal. Or maybe that’s just for us professional athletes. I’ve got no reason to follow it. But, to me, the crap’s not worth the risk. I’ve heard it gave some guys brain cancer. If you’ve got the right genetics, who needs the shit?”
“A health nut,” the cop said, proving he really was a prick, but then the woman took over by silencing the man a look.
“Back to that problem I mentioned,” she said to Squires. “Someone robbed Dr. Ford and Dr. Tomlinson. They took almost two thousand dollars from their billfolds. Cash.”
That quick, Squires felt like he could breathe again. Hell, he’d almost forgotten that he’d hidden their damn money in his double-wide. Even if the cops had searched him and found the cash in his pocket, it was no big deal. Not compared to a murder rap, anyway, or running a steroids operation.
Squires asked what he thought was a smart question: “Did the guys leave the billfolds in their vehicle? That’s not very smart, you ask me. Not around here.”
When the woman replied, “No, they tossed them on the ground before they went into the water,” Squires let them see that he was thinking about it.
“I don’t want to sound like a racist,” he said after a few seconds, “but I’ve got a lot of Mexican tenants. And the way they are around any kind of valuable property, especially cash money, that’s just a fact of life. The little bastards will steal you blind, give ’em a chance. There’s something else to think about, too. Or maybe I shouldn’t say anything, because I’m not one to stick my nose into other people’s business. I hate people like that.”
The woman said, “Oh?”
Squires made a show of it, giving it some more thought, before saying, “It has to do with that hippie-looking dude, Dr. whatever his name is. Think about it, that’s all I’m saying. A guy who looks the way he looks, carrying that much cash.”
“Tomlinson,” the woman said. “He and Dr. Ford are from Sanibel Island. You’ve never met them before?”
“The Tomlinson dude, no, but I’ve seen him cruising my park plenty of times. About once a month he shows up. Like I said, I don’t know the guy, so I’m not making any charges here, but that’s another fact of life. The drug dealer types come through my park all the time. They know that the-”
Squires caught himself. He’d almost said the illegals.
“-they know that the migrant workers who live here sometimes have grass and peyote to sell. They bring it with them from Mexico when they cross the border. Maybe the guy, Tomlinson, is a drug dealer. Why don’t you search their vehicle? You might find something that would surprise you.”
That didn’t play too well, but Squires didn’t care. The cops didn’t know about the dead girl’s body in the lake. And they didn’t know about his steroids kitchen only a block away.
Not yet, anyway.
Harris Squires was looking through the squad car window, seeing the tow truck lower Fifi onto the bed of a truck, its big tires flattening beneath her weight. The vehicle was about the same size as the stake truck he and his buddies had used to bring Fifi to Red Citrus.
Seeing the gator, he couldn’t help but worry about what the Wildlife cops might find in the animal’s belly. Squires was also thinking, I’ve got to get my hands on that little Bible-freak girl before she goes blabbing to the law.
Half an hour later, when the cops had released him, after he’d showered and iced his bad hamstring, Squires opened a fresh pint of tequila and began to make the rounds.
The little brat wasn’t at the trailer where she usually stayed. But that was okay. The girl had left behind her only clean shirt, a ratty little book and a framed photo of what was probably her Mexican family.
She couldn’t have gone far.
The bodybuilder took a moment to study the photo. His eyes moved from the girl-who looked about eight or so when the shot was taken-to what must have been the girl’s mother, who was wearing an Indian-looking shawl over her head. The angular noses were similar, the line of their jaws.
Why the hell did they both look so familiar?
Hell… all Mexicans looked the same, Squires decided. The important thing was to find that damn girl.