Charles Regis Perrone would not be laying his immaculate fingertips on diseased vermin, not for a lousy thirty-eight grand a year.

Then one morning, while shredding newspapers for the rodent cages, he spotted a headline that would change his destiny: congress MULLS $8 BILLION PLAN FOR EVERGLADES RESTORATION.

Fortune appeared to Chaz in a mystical burst of green light. With a zeal that would have flabbergasted his former college professors, he embarked upon an ambitious research project that ultimately connected him with a person named Samuel Johnson Hammernut, known as "Red" to both friends and enemies. Hammernut's name had become familiar to Chaz through archived newspaper articles that alleged recurring atrocities against his fellowmen-specifically, immigrant farmworkers-as well as the planet itself.

At first, Red Hammernut had been wary of Chaz's audacious proposition, but soon he'd come around. It was he who was now phoning Chaz at three in the morning at the Marriott.

"What's this I heard?" Red Hammernut barked from what sounded like a NASA wind tunnel.

Chaz peered at the digital clock. "Where are you?" he asked.

"Africa, 'member?"

Red Hammernut, in quest of a world-record tarpon, was calling from a satellite phone aboard a mother ship somewhere off the coast of Gabon.

"So what's this about Joey?" he said. "Is it true?"

Chaz sat up in bed, suddenly alert. "I'm afraid so, Red. We went on a cruise and she… well, she must've fallen off the ship. They can't find her anywhere."

"Damn."

"How'd you know about it?"

"It was in the Fort Lauderdale papers. Lisbeth faxed me the story," Red Hammernut said.

"But how'd you figure out where I was?"

"I called up that girl reporter and told her I was your uncle. Ha!"

"Oh."

Chaz understood that this was not a sympathy call, such sentiment being alien to Red Hammernut's character. The man wanted information, and he also wanted to remind Chaz of his larger responsibilities.

"I don't know what happened," Chaz said carefully, in case Detective Rolvaag was tapping the hotel line. "Joey went up on deck in the middle of the night and she didn't come back. Nobody saw her go overboard, but that's the assumption."

"Why, sure. What the hell else could it be?" Red Hammernut's voice whorled in the static. "What a tur'ble fucking thing, just tur'ble. Tell me, son, they still out searchin' for her? The Coast Guard boys, I mean."

"Until tomorrow at noon. Then they call it quits."

"Well, I'll be damned."

Chaz could picture the stumpy little Cracker lounging in the cabin of the yacht, lapping at a tumbler of Jack Daniel's. His freckled bowling-pin legs would be sunburned to a bright pink, and the sea breeze would have made a comedy of his sparse coppery comb-over. The round white circles around Red's squinty eyes-caused by his absurdly oversized Polaroids-would present the visage of an irradiated lemur.

"You need anything, Chaz, anything at all," Red Hammernut said. "I can have six private choppers in the air at dawn, that's what you want. We'll do our own goddamn search and rescue!"

Anxiously, Chaz wondered how many drinks Red had guzzled. "That's very generous," he told him, "but they've been up and down the coast a dozen times. They'd have found her by now, don't you think? The water's full of sharks."

"Oh man," Red Hammernut said. "You hear all that noise?"

"Sure do," Chaz said.

"Rough as a cob out here. It's gotta be blowin' thirty knots."

"You be careful."

"Hell, son, ain't you even gonna ask about the fishin'?"

"Right. How's it going?" Chaz sensed it was time to wrap up the chat, before Red abandoned all pretense of genuine concern.

"Sucks doggie schlongs, that's how it's goin'. Four days and we haven't jumped one tarpon over a hundred pounds," Red Hammernut complained. "You're the ace marine scientist, what's the goddamn deal? Where's my fish?"

Chaz had no idea. "Maybe they're spawning," he said lamely.

When Red Hammernut laughed, he sounded like a constipated mule. "Spawning, my ass! Don't tell me you needed a Ph.D. to come up with that one? A Ph.D. that I fuckin' paid for?"

"Well, that wasn't my field of study." Chaz strained to conceal his annoyance.

"What's not your field?"

"Migratory game fish."

Red Hammernut guffawed. "That's too bad, 'cause I could use some honest-to-God expertise right now. This little operation's costin' me about three grand a day."

Then maybe you should've started with something small and dumb, Chaz felt like saying, like perch. Red Hammernut had taken up sportfishing only three months earlier.

"Maybe your luck'll change tomorrow," Chaz offered, but the crusty bastard couldn't lay off.

"I trust you know more 'bout sharks than you do 'bout tarpon," he said, "if you catch my drift."

The guy's unbelievable, Chaz thought, joking about what happened to Joey.

"I think we're losing the signal!" Chaz shouted into the mouthpiece. "You take care of yourself, and we'll talk when you get back."

"For sure," Red Hammernut said. "Hey, I'm real sorry about the missus. A damn shame is what it is."

The little shitkicker was trying to sound sincere, but Chaz wasn't fooled. The man had the heart of a scorpion.

"You be careful," Red added in an unmistakable tone of warning. "You hear me? Be real damn careful. Am I comin' through?"

"I hear you fine, Red."

Joey Perrone awoke before sunrise and unwrapped the strip of towel from her head. Although her eyelids remained tender from the man o'war stings, her vision seemed clear. Quietly she made her way to the bathroom, where she tried to ignore the blotched and bleary woman in the mirror.

She had slept in an oversized Stanford jersey and a pair of white jogging shorts that had belonged to one of Mick Stranahan's ex-wives, the television producer. When Joey had inquired how long that particular marriage had lasted, he'd said, "Depends who you ask."

Gingerly she washed her face, then managed to gargle without making a peep. Afterward she hunted through the vanity and found a rubber band for her hair.

Stranahan was asleep, sprawled on a sofa in the living room. Joey tiptoed up to him and leaned as close as she dared. In the half-light she studied his features and smiled.

Not bad, she thought. I knew it.

She stopped in the kitchen to grab two apples and a ripe banana. Slipping out the back, she was careful to close the screen door softly. Strom lifted his head when she stepped barefoot onto the dock. Joey stroked his muzzle and whispered, "You're a handsome fella. Maybe someday mean ol' Mick will find you a girlfriend."

As she climbed aboard the skiff, Joey was thinking: This is really rude. The least I could have done was leave him a note.

She untied the ropes and shoved off. As the boat slid lightly away, Joey sat down at the wheel, peeled the banana and waited. She didn't want to crank up the engine too near the island and awaken Stranahan-she felt guilty enough about the way she was leaving.

Inside the steering console was Stranahan's telephone, plugged in with a charger cord; that meant he'd have no way to call the authorities when he discovered his skiff was gone. Again Joey felt lousy, but keeping Mick incommunicado would give her some extra time to do what she had to.

As the boat drifted away, she finished the banana and placed the peel under the seat. In an aft hatch she located the fuel-primer bulb and squeezed until it was hard in her fist. She knew something about outboards-years earlier she had taught her first husband to water-ski, and together they'd bought an Aquasport powered with a i5o-horse Yamaha.

Stranahan's boxy old Evinrude started on the third try. Joey nudged the throttle forward and checked over her shoulder. There was no sign of Mick, but the Doberman was watching her from the end of the dock, his ears pricked and his butt wiggling excitedly. She waved at the dog, then took off toward the Miami skyline.