The Edible Exile

By Carl Hiaasen

BYLINER FICTION

Copyright (c) 2013 by Carl Hiaasen Cover design by Mimi Dutta Cover illustration by Brett Lamb/Getty Images All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-1-61452-091-7

First e-book edition: December 2013

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Table of Contents

Preface

The Edible Exile

About the Author

About Byliner

Byliner Recommends … Everyone’s Reading Bastard

Byliner Recommends … You Were Never Really Here

Byliner Recommends … How to Get Away with Murder in America

Preface

This story has a peculiar lineage. Not long ago, the editors of Byliner approached me about a short piece of fiction I’d written a long time ago. It had been found in an old file by Will Blythe, the former literary editor of Esquire. Apparently my manuscript had been submitted to (and rejected by) the magazine.

The working title was “Retirement Living at Its Finest.” As near as I can tell, it was written at least twenty-three years ago. At the time, I was writing two or three columns a week for the Miami Herald and working on novels at night, so it’s not surprising that I’d lost track of the manuscript.

The plot is set in Miami during the wind-down of the long armed conflict between the Sandinista government of Nicaragua and the anti-communist rebels known as contras, who were supported and trained by the CIA. Cuervo, the main character, is a prominent, high-living exile who raises money in America for the contra cause.

A shadowing element of the story is the notorious Iran-contra affair, in which operatives of Ronald Reagan’s administration secretly sold arms to Iran in a doomed scheme to gain the release of American hostages in Lebanon. Some of the money from that arms sale was illegally diverted to fund the contras, a ballsy though harebrained move.

References in the story to figures like Eugene Hasenfus seem obscure now, but for me they stirred memories of scandal-filled headlines.

However, the most intriguing thing about the “Retirement Living” manuscript was that the ending had been lost. The printout stopped at the bottom of page 16, with a character named Sixto saying, “Let us be alone for a while.”

I had absolutely no recollection of how I’d finished the original story. I dug through a steamer trunk and many old files, uncovering several Esquire rejection slips but no trace of that particular story.

So I decided to write a new ending. As a friend said, “How often does a writer get the opportunity to collaborate with a younger version of himself?”

And because I know the younger version of me would be highly annoyed to get edited by the older version, I didn’t rewrite those first sixteen pages. I did put a new title on the story, but the younger me can just suck it up and deal with that.

Carl Hiaasen

December 2013

The Edible Exile

Cuervo no longer went swimming in the mornings.

The TV news said somebody had spotted a great white shark off Key Biscayne. That was three weeks ago, and still local charter captains were advertising a big shark hunt. From the balcony of his penthouse, Cuervo could see the fishing boats every day, trolling back and forth a few miles offshore. He knew they were dumping buckets of blood and bonita guts to draw in the great white, and he knew that hammerheads and blacktips could be just as nasty.

So Cuervo no longer went swimming in the mornings.

“I need some exercise,” he said to Sixto, his bodyguard.

“I’ll get you a woman,” said Sixto.

Cuervo said, “No, that’s too much work.”

Sometimes Sixto did not understand his boss. Exercise was exercise, although Sixto himself didn’t worry about it. He was six-five, two hundred forty pounds, not a pinch of fat, according to his mother. Sixto knew he looked strong: the sleek black hair, the high, strong cheekbones, the intense brown eyes, even the scar—the scar definitely added something. Cuervo told people that Sixto’s scar was a bullet wound, a crease from an M16. Actually, some little brat back in Managua had thwacked him in the face with a Pepsi bottle, point-blank, blood all over the uniform. Even better, the kid got away. Sixto’s captain had emptied his clip, but all he’d hit was a VW bus with a red cross painted on the side.

“They’ve got a gym on the third floor,” Sixto said to Cuervo. The two men spoke to each other in Spanish.

Cuervo said, “Fat gringos on bicycles, no thank you. Maybe I’ll buy one of those machines—what’re they called?”

“Nautilus.”

“Yes,” Cuervo said, tightening the sash on his bathrobe. “A Nautilus. Can you find me one?”

Sixto nodded. “They are expensive,” he said.

“So, life is expensive,” Cuervo replied. This was one of his favorite sayings. Sixto often wondered how any man who had lived such a long time could be so wrong.

*

Zacharias arrived the next day at noon. Sixto was in the lobby, waiting for the Nautilus machine, when he saw him drive up in one of the bank’s leased Cadillac Sevilles.

“So how’s the big man today?” Zacharias asked.

“Constipated,” said Sixto. He did not care for Zacharias or his phony collegial manner. Also, his cologne would gag a goat.

“Hey, fantastic news,” the smooth young banker said. “I saw in the Herald today, our boys nuked a weapons depot near the Bocay. Eighteen Sandinistas wasted.”

Sixto frowned. Our boys?

“Hey, don’t look so excited,” Zacharias said.

“My cousin says they’re eating rats in the hills,” Sixto remarked. “Rat stew, rat gumbo, rat burgers. The rebels, I’m talking about. Eating goddamn rats.”

For once Zacharias looked uncomfortable. “Some of the supply planes are backed up in Honduras, the usual problems.” He patted his cordovan briefcase. “That’s one reason I’m here.”

“You’re talking about real food?”

“Meat, rice, veggies, you name it. Sitting in freezers at Tegucigalpa. Chicken McNuggets even.”

Sixto said, “And you can get it out?”

Zacharias pressed the button for the elevator. “Don’t I always?” he said, smiling.

*

Up in Cuervo’s penthouse, Zacharias said, “That guy’s got some chip on his shoulder.”

“Who, Sixto?” Cuervo sipped a Bloody Mary. “He has relatives in the fighting.”

Zacharias sat on a pale lavender sofa and opened the briefcase across his lap. “I heard he had something to do with the murder of that ABC guy, years back. I heard he did the shooting.”

Cuervo’s brow crinkled. “I saw the footage. The soldier who did it was not so tall.” He brought the drink to his lips. “But, yes, Sixto was in the Guard at the time.”

Not exactly a ringing denial. The way Cuervo figured, Zacharias was more efficient when he was worried.

“Everybody’s got their hand out,” the banker began, “per the usual.” He spread the papers on the sofa.

“Break it down for me,” Cuervo said.

And Zacharias did.

This time they’d started with nine hundred thousand, from the usual right-wing pipeline. The propane guy in Louisiana, the billionaire Bircher in Anaheim, the half-senile widow of a newspaper mogul in Cincinnati. Cuervo’s people had cute code names for all of them, Disney names—Huey, Louie, and Dewey. The Ducklings. Their checks were made out to a trust in Coral Gables; Zacharias’s bank, naturally. Officially, all the money was marked for humanitarian aid—food, clothes, antibiotics. Unofficially, some of it went for mortars and rifle parts, even in these final days. The CIA kept the shopping list, and the skim was heavy; brokers’ fees, that’s what they called it. Zacharias himself took one percent just for counting it.

“Same as I charge the Colombians,” he told Cuervo, who looked as if he were about to complain but didn’t.

“Things have tightened up since Hasenfus,” Zacharias said. When he talked about Hasenfus, he meant the whole Iran thing, from Secord to Hull to the Swiss. Even after it hit the fan, Cuervo had never paid much attention to the details. All he’d wanted to know was: How much was left? Same thing he wanted to know right now.

“Four hundred fifty,” Zacharias said, “maybe.”

“Half,” Cuervo said, almost to himself. He got up and filled his glass again. It would never occur to him to offer Zacharias a drink.

“We’ve done worse,” the banker said. “Worse than half.”

“But you see,” Cuervo said, “I’m the one who hears about it, not you. I’m the one they complain to, the big shot in Miami. The one who gets on television, the one with the fancy place on the ocean.”

“You’re not the only one,” Zacharias said. “Surely they understand your importance—”

“Not all of them do.”

“And all the good you’ve done.” Zacharias waved the bank statement, the printout for the trust account. “Tell them to look for themselves—there’s money here. For Christ’s sakes, it could’ve all dried up after Hasenfus; it’s a blessed miracle it didn’t. I remember we had Huey and Louie looking at frigging Angola—talk about pissing up a rope!”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Cuervo said evenly. “I’m the one who talked them out of it.”

“Damn right,” said Zacharias, impassioned. “You’re the one said Wait, let it simmer. You’re the one said Africa’s hopeless, keep your money here.”

“Nicaragua,” Cuervo said, “yes.”

Zacharias got up and stalked to the refrigerator. He poured himself some Evian water and added three ice cubes. “Lemon?” he called to Cuervo.

“We’re out,” Cuervo said. “Sixto’s going to the market later.”

Zacharias came back with his drink and stood by the broad picture window, gazing down at the striped hues of the Atlantic. Sailboarders zigzagged through the shallow water while pretty girls in luminous swimsuits clapped on the beach.

“The four-fifty,” said Cuervo, “is that before or after Honduras?”

“Before. Figure another fifty to get the food out, seventy-five for the bang-bang. Don’t worry, I factored all this in for the Colonel.”

The Colonel was an American, retired Army. He lived in Richmond, Virginia, with three poodles and a blond houseboy named Cleve. The Colonel’s cut was one-point-five on the weapons. The McNuggets he moved for free.

Again, Cuervo seemed more interested in the bottom line. “Let me be sure I understand,” he said to Zacharias. “Out of nine hundred thousand dollars, only three hundred twenty-five is spent on the merchandise. The rest is—”

“Overhead,” the banker said. “Expenses, if you like.”

“That’s what’s so hard to explain.”

“If the Ducklings don’t care, why should your people?”

Cuervo chuckled grimly. “Because my people are the ones running out of bullets and food.”

“This is a tough business,” said Zacharias. It was a line he used probably ten times a day.

Sixto came into the apartment, dragging a tall cardboard box across the carpet. The box said NAUTILUS on the side. He nodded at his boss but scarcely glanced at Zacharias, standing by the ocean window.

The banker said, “I was just telling the big man what a dynamite view he’s got. The ocean looks fabulous from up here.”

“Yes,” Sixto said. “Sometime you should go for a swim.”

*

Vincent Pucci lived on the fourth floor, bayside. Only two bedrooms, but there was a Castro convertible for when his daughter brought the grandchildren. Pucci was supposed to be retired, but some things were hard to give up. Like making money. Pucci had been a mobster for so long, he couldn’t stop, even in his seventies. After moving to Florida, one of the first things he did was buy a video arcade, start raking quarters off the Pac-Man machines. Not exactly the major leagues, but it gave them something to talk about back in Philadelphia. The old bastard, still at it. Unbelievable. For Vincent Pucci, it was a matter of pride as much as anything. With his wife dead, how the hell else was he supposed to amuse himself?

One day Pucci was down at the pool when Sixto and Cuervo arrived. Sixto was dressed in a black business suit, shoes as shiny as chrome. He was sweating so ferociously that his sunglasses had fogged from the inside. Cuervo wore baggy madras swim trunks and terry-cloth beach slippers; he took the slippers off and hid his Rolex inside one before easing into the pool with a sigh. Sixto sat down on a patio chair near Pucci, who leaned close and said, “Your piece is showing.”

Sixto glanced down at his hip. The old geezer was right: his coat had ridden up around the black butt of the Browning. Sixto adjusted it and said, “Thanks.”

“I used to have me a guy like you,” explained Pucci. “Back in Philly. Only he was nowhere as big.”

Cuervo was starting his laps. He wore Speedo goggles, which pinched his cheeks into purple seams. The pool water matted his white hair into choppy bangs along his forehead.

Pucci said, “I seen him before on television, am I right? Nightline, I think it was last week.”

“Maybe so,” Sixto said.

“He’s one of them contras. One of them freedom fighters.” Pucci sat up and reached for his Coppertone sunblock, number 18. He introduced himself to Sixto but didn’t offer his hand, didn’t want to get the suntan goop all over.

“I seen you, too,” said Pucci. “Around.” Now Cuervo was trying out his backstroke. It didn’t look nearly so clumsy when he did it in the ocean. Sixto figured the waves made a difference; there were no waves to ride in a swimming pool.

“I’m a businessman,” Pucci said. “My whole life.”

“What business?” asked Sixto. The guy had some balls, talking to a stranger with a gun in his pants. Sixto was amused.

“All kinds of business,” Pucci replied. “You name it, I did it. Only don’t tell the IRS. Far as they know, I’m still just a greengrocer. Retired.”

Sixto smiled appreciatively.

“Million ways to make money in this town, even a man my age,” Pucci said. “Chickens, for instance. Not food chickens, but religious chickens. See, there’s this Cuban voodoo religion where they cut up chickens for their gods.”

“Santeria,” said Sixto.

“Whatever. Anyway, they got churches and statues and everything, but what they don’t got is a good line on live chickens. See, the chickens gotta be alive.”

Sixto said, “Yes, I understand.”

“Well, that’s where I come in. I know a guy who knows a guy, and so on. These church people used to pay five, six bucks a chicken. Now I got ‘em a deal where they pay three-fifty. Truck comes down from Waycross, Georgia, delivers a hundred a week. I get a dollar a bird, the Cuban voodoos save six bits, and everybody’s happy. That’s business, am I right?”

Sixto nodded. He knew nothing about the true market value of chickens, but this Vincent fellow seemed very interesting. Sixto asked what was the difference, flavorwise, between a food chicken and a Santeria chicken. Pucci said no difference, as far as he knew. “Maybe ask the priests,” he said. “I mean, these voodoos got their own actual priests. Father Babaloo, names likes that. No joke.”

Sixto said, “Your people in Georgia—what other places do they ship these chickens?”

Pucci laughed and stroked the naked pink spot on the crown of his head. “Anywhere I say. They got airplanes, too, not just trucks.”

“Nicaragua?”

“Sure.”

“The hills, I mean.”

Pucci nodded. “No sweat, my friend.”

“How soon could you do such a thing?” Sixto had completely forgotten about Cuervo, dog-paddling a course between three shrieking toddlers in water wings.

“Friday,” said Pucci, matter-of-factly. “Tell me how many.”

“Seven hundred,” said Sixto. “Tell me the price.”

“Aw, later,” Pucci said. “The first batch, I’ll front you.”

Sixto wondered what the old man’s angle was, but he couldn’t help but like him. “You would do that, front me these chickens?”

“The first load, you bet.”

Vincent Pucci stuck out his stubby brown hand and Cuervo’s bodyguard shook it, suntan goop and all.

*

Two weeks later, with the war grinding down, Sixto’s cousin crossed into Honduras and caught a flight to Miami International. The cousin’s name was Elena. She was nineteen, and had been with the rebels three years. The first thing she said to Sixto when she hugged him outside Customs was: “Those chickens saved our lives.”

“So they arrived!” Sixto was incredulous. The old gangster had done practically overnight what the Colonel and all the spooks and shysters couldn’t do in two months: deliver decent food to starving soldiers. And he had done it cheaper, asking pittance for a commission. Sixto said nothing more about it in the car, but he was thinking cold thoughts. As he dropped his cousin at a trailer park in Sweetwater, he noticed how gaunt she was, and he noticed the scarlet insect bites on her arms and neck. Some of these would turn into scars, and this gave Sixto a feeling of anger.

Cuervo was huffing on the Nautilus machine when Sixto arrived at the penthouse on Key Biscayne.

“Can you … call … for … a barber,” Cuervo said, not in the form of a question.

Curtly, Sixto said, “What for?”

“Brokaw … show,” Cuervo panted. “Remote feed … live.”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

Sixto waited until Cuervo was done and helped him step down from the stair pedals. Cuervo took a lavender bath towel and shuffled toward the kitchen.

When he came back, holding a tall club soda, he noticed that Sixto had taken his jacket off. He was sitting in Cuervo’s favorite rattan chair, the one nearest the picture window.

“Well, did you call for the barber?”

“Not yet,” said Sixto, staring. “There is news from Managua, no?”

“Yes,” said Cuervo, toweling the pink folds of his neck. “The fight is over.”

*

Zacharias came over while the NBC crew was setting up in Cuervo’s living room. The banker said he wanted to watch the big man do his thing.

Sixto went into the master bathroom, where a makeup man was dusting a thin brush under Cuervo’s iguana-like eyes. Sixto asked Cuervo if he could invite two of his friends up to the penthouse to see the live TV spot. “Certainly,” Cuervo said. “Sixto, what do you think of this shirt?” A baby-blue guayabera, custom-made at a men’s shop in Bal Harbour.

“Very handsome,” said the bodyguard, thinking: Where are the ones he usually wears, the ones with the tiny polo ponies on the breast?

*

The elevator stopped on the fourth floor, and Vincent Pucci got on. When he pressed the button marked PH, a dark young woman passenger smiled at him and said, “You must be the one who sent the chickens.”

“That’s me,” said Pucci. “And you must be Sixto’s cousin. Pleased to meet you.”

Sixto was waiting for them in the hallway outside the penthouse. He led them quietly into the living room, and they sat down behind the camera crew and its contraptions. Three portable kliegs were aimed at Cuervo, who was perspiring voluminously. He was so damp that the tiny flesh-colored earphone kept falling out, landing like a spider on the shoulder of his guayabera. Zacharias hovered behind the light stems, sucking noisily on ice cubes. “Nice haircut,” he called out to Cuervo.

In Spanish, Elena whispered to Sixto: “Look at this place. How does he afford it?”

Sixto didn’t answer.

Elena pointed at a huge silver fish on the wall, and Sixto told her it was a tarpon, more than a hundred pounds. Cuervo had caught it in the Keys, on a fishing trip with George Bush. Elena asked why they had not eaten the fish instead of mounting it, and Sixto said he didn’t know.

At exactly 6:48, one of the TV crew—a shaggy man in tinted blue glasses—aimed a finger at Cuervo, and Tom Brokaw began asking questions via satellite from New York. Without a monitor, no one in the penthouse could see the newsman. However, Cuervo could hear the famous voice on the earpiece, which he mashed against his head with two nervous fingers. The interview lasted only two minutes and ten seconds, but everyone agreed that Cuervo had done a nice job. Elena was particularly impressed with his flawless English.

It took about an hour for the NBC crew to pack and clear out, during which time Cuervo and Elena talked about the newest peace plan. Elena said she had lost track of them all, and Cuervo said yes, it got confusing. Sixto was waiting for Cuervo to ask Elena about the fighting in the countryside, but he did not.

Afterwards, Zacharias announced that they should all have a drink to celebrate.

“Celebrate what?” Sixto asked sharply.

“I’ll have a martini,” Cuervo said.

“Make mine a beer,” Vincent Pucci said.

Elena said she would love a glass of cold water. “With ice cubes,” she added. “I forgot how much I liked ice cubes.”

When they were settled in with their drinks, Sixto turned to Pucci and said, “Now I would like you to tell the story of the chickens.”

“Jeez, it was no big deal,” Pucci said. “It was a breeze.”

“You saved our lives,” Elena said.

“What?” Zacharias asked. “What was a breeze?” Cuervo, too, said he would like to hear the story, though he had no idea where it would lead.

So Pucci told how he had gotten the chickens to a rebel outpost in the hills of northeastern Nicaragua.

“In three days,” Sixto declared. “Seven hundred chickens.”

“Yeah, but let’s talk fresh,” Zacharias said, rolling some gin around his cheeks.

Pucci laughed. “Hell, these birds were alive,” he said. “Can’t get much fresher than that.”

Cuervo shifted slightly in the big rattan chair. In a chilly voice he said, “We are all very grateful, Mr. Pucci. And impressed.”

“It’s nothing. You just gotta know the right people.”

Pointedly, Zacharias said, “Our operation is much more sensitive. And complicated.”

“And slower,” Elena remarked, an edge to her voice.

“We have to take certain precautions,” the banker went on. “The logistics cannot be compared.”

Sixto said, “He even fronted us the chickens.”

Elena looked at Pucci as if he were Saint Francis. “You did?”

“Jeez, it was just chickens. What are we talkin’, a couple grand? Come on.”

In a formal tone, Sixto addressed Cuervo. “Mr. Pucci hasn’t been paid yet.”

Here Zacharias lost his slick composure. “So what!” he snapped at Sixto. “You pay him. It wasn’t our deal. You’re the one set this up.”

But Cuervo didn’t wish to argue. He told Sixto to go to the safe in the bedroom and get what was necessary.

The bodyguard came back with five thousand cash, in a bankroll. Zacharias recognized the stamp on the wrapper.

Sixto put the money in Pucci’s pudgy hand. Pucci looked over at Elena. “You were down there?” he asked.

Elena said yes, but it wasn’t so bad.

Pucci said, “Is it worth another trip? I mean, I can get five hundred more on a DC-6 tomorrow—”

“No,” Elena said. “It’s over.”

Pucci handed the money back to Sixto. “Don’t worry about the dough,” he said. “I’ll make it back on the voodoos. Jack ‘em up another seventy cents a bird, they don’t care.”

Cuervo took a very long sip from his martini, while Zacharias made a noise like he was disgusted with the whole affair. Pucci knew where things were headed, knew it was time to go home. He stood up, smoothed his lime-colored golf trousers, and thanked Cuervo for the beer. He smiled at Sixto and gave Elena a fatherly peck on the cheek. “I’ll find my way out,” he said.

Elena waved. “Thank you, again,” she said.

When Cuervo looked up from his martini, Sixto had the Browning on his lap.

“What is it now?” Cuervo asked sternly.

“Chow time,” said the bodyguard.

*

Sixto set a lovely table.

“Where did you learn to do this?” Elena asked.

“He entertains often,” Sixto replied, jerking his head toward Cuervo, “so I learned to be a butler.” He took his cousin’s hand and squeezed it. “Go look around the place,” he told her. “Let us be alone for a while.”

Cuervo sat stiffly in the tallest chair. His hands were folded across his belly in a manner meant to indicate impatience, but that was an act. Cuervo was worried.

“Something must be done,” Sixto said.

“Like what? Sadly, we lost the war. It’s the end.”

“But not for this life of yours, no?” Sixto poured another glass of wine for Cuervo. The label on the bottle said it came from Chile. “You should finish this,” Sixto said.

“What do you want from me? These rich Americans, the Ducklings—already they’re looking for new communists to fight, a new crusade. There will be no more money for our people.”

Sixto thought, None of “our people” live in penthouses.

“How much is left in the bank?” he said to Cuervo.

“You should have asked Zacharias before you sent him home.”

“I didn’t send him anywhere. He said the gun made him nervous.”

“You should put it away,” Cuervo said, “so we can talk as friends.”

“How much is this place worth?” Sixto asked. “A million dollars? More?”

“That’s a rude question.”

“But it would pay for lots of chickens, no?”

“Now you’re talking nonsense,” said Cuervo. “If not for men like me, nobody would give a shit about our people. Nobody in this country could find Managua on a map. Who went on Face the Nation to tell the world? Who does Brokaw call on for interviews?”

“Eat,” Sixto said.

Dinner was sauteed grouper topped with hearts of palm and diced Florida lobster. Afterwards Sixto told Elena that he and Cuervo were going out for the night. He said she was welcome to stay in one of the guest rooms, and that she shouldn’t bother to wait up.

*

He had trouble finding a truck, so he called Vincent Pucci, who said it was no problem. Later that night, Zacharias was puzzled to see a seventeen-foot U-Haul pulling up to his house in Coconut Grove; he’d been expecting Cuervo’s slate-gray Mercedes. There were more surprises to come, at gunpoint.

The boat that took the men to sea belonged to a shrimper on Virginia Key. Back in Nicaragua, Sixto’s father had been a fisherman, and Sixto had known how to read the tides since the age of fourteen. The shrimper was happy to loan out his trawler for a thousand dollars cash, which Sixto had taken from Cuervo’s crocodile-skin billfold.

It was a calm night, an easy ride. They were three miles off Key Biscayne when Sixto shut off the engine. He could see the condo tower topped by Cuervo’s penthouse, where his cousin was spending a mosquito-free night. Sixto could also make out the Bear Cut Bridge and the merry lights of the Sonesta Beach Hotel, where sometimes Cuervo would meet women.

Women he paid for with money that should have gone to los comandos.

On the deck of the boat, Zacharias wriggled like a bug-eyed sardine. He was hog-tied with a yellow ski rope clipped to a fifty-pound dumbbell. His gold diamond-studded wristwatch added more ballast. A strip of black duct tape covered his mouth.

Cuervo was also bound with ski rope, though no gym weights had been added. As a courtesy, Sixto peeled the tape from his lips.

First came the angry guilt trip: “You would be in prison if it weren’t for me! For shooting that American newsman!”

“I wasn’t the one who did it. You know that.”

“They were frantic to lock somebody up! You were in the Guard, you were there when it happened, so who’s to say? It was me who spoke up for you, and this is how I’m repaid? I got you out of the country. Brought you here to Miami and gave you a respectable position.”

Sixto said he was grateful. However, certain facts could not be swept aside. Cuervo’s lifestyle in exile was as luxurious as the late General Somoza’s, while in the hills Elena and the other rebels were frying up rodents for breakfast.

Next Cuervo tried negotiating: “Do you want money? A foundation owns the penthouse, but there are other resources available to me.”

“A foundation?”

“Zacharias set it up. For tax reasons, he said. Ask him yourself.”

The squirming Zacharias grunted some sort of objection, as if he understood Spanish. His fine shoes squeaked on the slick deck.

To Sixto, the penthouse was only a garish reminder of what had gone wrong, and how slow he’d been to take notice. He wasn’t interested in having a conversation with Zacharias, the man who took one percent just for counting the money. Sixto gathered him up and dropped him overboard.

Cuervo gasped at the sound of the banker hitting the water. The boat barely rocked. Within moments the bubbles and swirls were gone, and the ocean turned velvet again. The cabin lights cast a soft glow on the shrimp nets hanging slack from the outriggers.

Sixto yanked Cuervo upright and sat him against the transom.

“Why can’t you understand?” Cuervo said in a voice much higher than the one he’d used with Tom Brokaw. “There was no other way to accomplish what we did. From the bottom to the top, everybody had their hands out! Try to appreciate the difficulty of our situation.”

Sixto had a tendency to oversimplify. That he knew about himself. Still, some things were impossible to rationalize no matter how many angles were considered—for example, his boss riding down Brickell Avenue in a climate-controlled German sedan while in the jungle Elena’s boots were rotting off her feet.

Ironically, Sixto had never thought much about the politics behind the war, the competing ideologies. Were it not for loyalty to a family friend, he might have easily ended up on the opposite side. He might still be living in Managua, wearing the uniform of a Sandinista officer.

But he was here, in the richest country in the world, bodyguard to a famed freedom fighter who once had his photograph taken with Oliver North.

Perhaps it had been cruel to make Cuervo help move the Nautilus machine from the penthouse to the truck and then onto the shrimp boat, but Sixto couldn’t risk pulling a muscle doing it all by himself. He knew he would need all of his strength later.

Cuervo had quickly figured out what was coming, though he’d hoped to talk Sixto out of it. Now he understood there was no chance.

“Just use the damn gun on me,” he rasped bitterly.

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand,” Sixto said.

He stood Cuervo on the stair-climber and tied his bound wrists to the handlebar. Then he removed Cuervo’s loafers, tossed them over the stern, and handcuffed one tan ankle to the foot pedals.

“They would’ve got nothing all those years, your cousin and the others, no food or weapons, if it weren’t for me,” Cuervo said. “I was the public face of the pro-democracy resistance!”

It was a line often used to introduce Cuervo at private fund-raisers. Sixto had heard it many times.

“Not anymore,” he said.

Flexing his knees, he braced both arms against the stem of the Nautilus machine and pushed as hard as he could until it toppled sideways over the gunwale. At the end, he had to jump clear to avoid being snagged by the steel footing.

The shrimper had left a cooler on the boat, and Sixto helped himself to an American beer. He darkened the cabin and sat on the stern, watching a lighthouse wink on a distant reef to the south. He was familiar with the freshwater bull sharks of Lake Nicaragua, but he knew nothing about great whites except that they were man-eaters.

Perhaps one would make an exception for Cuervo.

About the Author

Carl Hiaasen was born and raised in Florida, where he still lives with his incredibly tolerant family. He is the author of several bestselling novels, including Strip Tease, Stormy Weather, Lucky You, Sick Puppy, Basket Case, Skinny Dip, Nature Girl, Star Island, and, most recently, Bad Monkey. He has also written a number of novels for young readers: Hoot, Flush, Scat, and Chomp. At age twenty-three, he joined the Miami Herald as a general assignment reporter and went on to work for the paper’s weekly magazine and later its prizewinning investigations team. Since 1985, Hiaasen has been writing a regular column, which still appears most Sundays in the Herald‘s opinion-and-editorial section. Dance of the Reptiles, a new collection of his columns, will be published in January 2014 by Vintage.

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Photograph by Tim Chapman

About Byliner

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