Skinny Dip

"Git away from her," he'd said without a flicker of emotion.

Instantly the orderlies had released Maureen and stepped away. "It's all right, Polly," she'd told the quaking nurse. "He's my nephew, from the Netherlands. The one I told you about."

Tool had stomped in and gathered Maureen from the bed, carrying her out of the room, down the hall, past the front desk, through the double doors and into the circular driveway, where he had parked the apple-red F-150 supercab pickup, purchased the day before with $33,641 cash.

Leaving, by Tool's arduous calculation, more than $465,000 in the Samsonite.

With plenty of room for the thirty-one fentanyl patches he had burglarized from a discount pharmacy in Boynton Beach-the medicine meant for Maureen, not for himself.

"It's a beauty!" she'd exclaimed upon seeing the new truck. "But I may need a stepladder."

"Naw," Tool had said, and lifted her royally into the passenger seat. The pickup had leather-trimmed captain's chairs, loads of leg-room, a crackerjack air conditioning system and a cargo bed deep enough to accommodate Tool's entire crop of highway crosses, which he had carefully uprooted one at a time from behind his trailer. The task had taken most of the night.

Appalled by the ratty condition of his bandages, Maureen had insisted that Tool seek out a doctor. For miles she'd begged, until he reluctantly had pulled off the turnpike near Kissimmee and made his way to the cattle ranch on the river. His veterinarian pal had agreed, at Maureen's urging, to extract both of the bullets.

"Soon you'll feel like a new man," Maureen proclaimed, dropping the slugs into her handbag. "Did he give you something for pain?"

"Whatever they use on bulls," Tool said. Truth was, he felt pretty darn fine. "So, where you wa

"Sure." They were bouncing along a narrow dirt track, heading off the ranch. Tool turned down the radio, some sappy song about loneliness and heartbreak on the road.

"Now, it's none of my business," Maureen said, "but I'm curious how you can afford a chariot like this on a bodyguard's income."

Tool thought about his answer while he took a long draw of lukewarm Mountain Dew. "Well, you gotta u

"This turned out to be a good one, then?"

"I'd have to say yeah, all things considered," he said. "So, now it's my turn for askin' a question, 'kay?"

"Fair enough."

"What's your all-time fantasy vacation?" "You mean, if we could go anywhere in the world?" "That's what I'm tryin' to tell you," Tool said. "We can go anywheres. You just name the place."

Maureen gazed out the window. Her hair seemed thi

She said, "It's still springtime, isn't it?"

"April, yes, ma'am. Goin' on May."

"I was thinking of those pelicans. They'll be heading north, I suppose."

"All the way to Canada is what it said on that TV show."

"Yes, to Canada. I remember," Maureen said. "Isn't that just remarkable?"

"Must be one helluva thing, thousands a huge white birds comin' down from the sky all together. Flyin' home," Tool said. "I'd sure like to see that operation."

"Me, too, Earl."

"It's a mighty long haul. Sure you're up for it?"

She leaned across and boxed him on the ear. "Don't worry about me, buster. You just drive."

"Yes, ma'am." Tool was beaming as he reached for the radio. "How 'bout some music?"

Karl Rolvaag had a dream that he was being strangled very slowly with a pale silken noose. He woke up clutching at his throat and discovered it snugly enwrapped by a sinewy albino tail. After a few interesting moments the detective managed to extricate himself and turn on the lamp. He trailed the departing length of python across the sheets, beneath the bed and into a ragged hole in the box spring. When Rolvaag cut the ticking away, he found not one but both of his absent companions, balled together in platonic contentment. Upon inspection neither of them manifested any doggy- or kitty-size lumps. To the contrary, the snakes appeared taut and hungry.

Rolvaag was relieved, though not entirely surprised, as the pets missing from Sawgrass Grove had earlier turned up unharmed. Pin-chot, the geriatic Pomeranian, had been located at the county pound, where it had been quarantined after nipping a slow-footed Jehovah's Witness. Pandora, the lost Siamese, had been ransomed back to the Mankiewicz family by neighborhood hooligans in exchange for a case of malt liquor.

The detective felt vindicated, but one piece of unfinished business remained. He removed the muscular animals from their box-spring hideaway and draped them carefully over his shoulders; a colorful, though hefty, adornment. He crossed the hallway to Mrs. Shulman's apartment and knocked three times. It was a blessing that she was too short for her security peephole, for otherwise she never would have opened the door.

"Nellie, you owe us an apology," Rolvaag said.

Mrs. Shulman shrank away in revulsion. "You degenerate monster! Get away from me with those slimy things!"

"Not until you say you're sorry."

"The only thing I'm sorry about is not getting you into court, you twisted freak. Now go!"

By now the pythons had taken notice of little Petunia, hopping madly at Mrs. Shulman's slippered feet. The reptiles raised their milky heads and feathered their rosy tongues, tasting the air. Rolvaag could feel their coils tightening in expectation.

"Easy, fellas," he whispered.

Nellie Shulman's pinched, mean eyes widened to fearful bulges when she saw the snakes begin to twitch.

"You sick perverted bastard!" she cried, and slammed the door.

When the detective returned to his apartment, the phone was ringing. He let the machine pick up.

"Karl, get your ass in here pronto." It was Captain Gallo. "We're going on a helicopter ride. There's another situation."

"What a surprise," Rolvaag murmured to himself.

In a way he felt sorry for his boss, who was a smart cop but sometimes oblivious to the laws of the jungle. Gallo had been genuinely flabbergasted only the day before, when the sheriff had called to report that the body of Samuel Johnson Hammernut had been discovered along Route 441 in western Palm Beach County.

It was a most u

Because of the ritualistic appearance of the Hammernut homicide, Palm Beach detectives were sniffing for a co

Rolvaag had gotten a chuckle out of that one. Gallo had not. It made him nervous that a wealthy and influential citizen interviewed by one of his detectives had turned up murdered ten days later.

"Look on the bright side," Rolvaag had told him. "It's out of our jurisdiction."

The captain's mood had failed to improve overnight. When Rolvaag arrived at headquarters, Gallo pulled him into his office and shut the door.

"We're flying out to the Everglades," he said momentously.