At the door, the bantam tycoon slapped a hand on Rolvaag's shoulder and asked if he wanted to take home a crate of fresh-picked esca-role. Rolvaag said leafy greens gave him indigestion, but he thanked Hammernut just the same.

Driving back toward the highway, the detective swerved to miss a baby snake that was sunning itself on the gravel. It was a speckled king, the size of a child's necklace, and right away the detective noticed it was grossly deformed. The snake had been born with only one eye, and on the ebony tip of its nose was a growth the size of an acorn. Rolvaag knew it probably wouldn't survive much longer, but he released it in a nearby grove anyway.

Thinking: Poor little guy. What a lousy roll of the dice he got.

Red Hammernut remembered the day he first met Charles Perrone. Lisbeth had fluttered into his office, saying there was a young man wanting to see him about a job; a persistent young man, she'd said, wouldn't speak to anybody but the boss himself. Red Hammernut's first impulse was to call security and have the impertinent punk heaved off the property, but then he glanced at the man's resume and said what the hell, give him five minutes. Red Hammernut was curious to know why anybody with a master's degree in marine biology was so keen on working for a vegetable farm.

Chaz Perrone walked in wearing a blue blazer, tan trousers and a club tie. He pumped Red Hammernut's hand, installed himself on the other side of the desk and started yakking like he was pushing time-shares. His cockiness was so annoying that Red Hammernut couldn't help interrupting now and then with a belch, but after a while the young man started making a certain amount of sense.

Perrone opened a file and took out a recent newspaper clipping that Red glumly recognized, the headline reading local farm cited as glades polluter. The article was about a series of water samples taken downstream from Red Hammernut's vegetable operation. Phosphorus had been measured in suspension at 302 parts per billion, nearly thirty times higher than the legal limit for runoff into the Everglades. By itself, Hammernut Farms was flushing more fertilizer per gallon into South Florida's water than the state's largest cattle ranch and sugarcane grower combined, an act of pollution so egregious that even Red Hammernut's powerful cronies in Washington dared not intercede.

It was Chaz Perrone's opinion that Hammernut Farms would continue to face harsh scrutiny from regulatory agencies as well as the news media, which is why he was generously offering his services as an environmental consultant. When Red Hammernut pointed out that Perrone had no background whatsoever in agricultural waste treatment, Chaz replied that he was a quick learner. He described his experience defending his current employer, a renowned cosmetics firm, against charges that their products contained carcinogens and industrial corrosives. Proudly he recalled the time that his testimony had cast critical doubt upon that of a female plaintiff whose cheekbones had mysteriously delaminated after an application of designer blush. Chaz asserted it was important for corporations to have their own experts, people who could credibly challenge accusers on points of science, or at least muddle the debate.

Red Hammernut liked Chaz Perrone's attitude. It was a pleasure to encounter a young biologist so unfettered by idealism, so unabashedly sympathetic to the needs of private enterprise. Morever, Chaz wasn't nerdy and soft-spoken like some of the scientists Red Hammernut had hired in the past. He was sharp-looking and glib, and would come across credibly on TV Unfortunately, a master's degree in sea lice wouldn't cut it. "You need a Ph.D. on swamps and such," Red Hammernut had informed Chaz, "else these enviros gonna eat you for breakfast."

And so it unfolded that Charles Regis Perrone was enrolled in a doctoral program at Duke University's Wetland Center. His improbable acceptance at such a lofty institution coincided with a substantial cash endowment from Mr. S. J. Hammernut, who also happened to be paying Chaz's tuition. Red Hammernut guessed correctly that, being in the heart of tobacco country, Duke would have no qualms about accepting phosphorus-tainted farm dollars.

Unlike during his stay at the University of Miami, Chaz Perrone required no whip cracking on his quest for a Ph.D. Although he didn't distinguish himself academically at Duke, he didn't embarrass himself, either. This time he was self-motivated; this time he smelled real money down the line. Upon graduation he expected to be presented with a lucrative consulting contract for Hammernut Farms, but Red had other plans. After pulling a few strings, he'd landed Chaz a gig as a state biologist, testing water purity in a particular sector of the Everglades Agricultural Area. The young biologist was profoundly disappointed, but Red assured him that a six-figure position (and an air-conditioned office) awaited-if he proved himself in the field.

And that Chaz was doing. Less than six weeks after he took the job, phosphorus levels in the runoff from Hammernut Farms were recorded at 150 parts per billion, a startling reduction of more than 50 percent. Two months later, the figure dropped to 78 ppb. Six months after that, field surveys showed the phosphorus discharge holding steady at about 9 ppb, a level so low that regulators removed Hammer-nut Farms from their target list of outlaw polluters. The local Sierra Club even gave a plaque to Red Hammernut, and planted a cypress seedling in his honor.

Red was pleased by the positive publicity, and he was glad to get those goddamn tree-huggers off his case. More important to the bottom line, however, was that the fictitious phosphorus readings allowed Red Hammernut to escape the costly inconveniences being imposed on his neighbors in the name of wetlands restoration. Unlike other farms in the area, Red's operation wasn't forced to cut back on the potent amounts of fertilizer it was dumping on crops, for example, or made to spend millions building filtration ponds to strain out the phosphate crud. Thanks to the innovative fieldwork of Dr. Charles Perrone, Hammernut Farms could continue using the Everglades as a cesspit.

Of course it was imperative that the corrupt arrangement between Chaz and Red remain secret, and in that regard Chaz's serial philandering proved to be a continuing source of concern. More than once Red Hammernut reminded Chaz that his fortunes would take a radically negative turn if he told any of his girlfriends the name of his true employer. Ironically, the woman about whom Red Hammernut worried least was Chaz's wife, because it seemed that Chaz didn't tell her much of anything.

Then came the phone call, Chaz jabbering frantically that Joey had caught him forging the water data. Red asking over and over: "You sure she knows what it is?" Chaz saying that he couldn't be certain, because Joey had just dropped the subject afterward. Over the phone, though, he had sounded suspicious. Definitely spooked. Red Hammernut had urged him to stay cool: "Don't assume nuthin'. Wait and see what she says about it."

And Joey Perrone hadn't said anything, not a word. Still, Chaz had remained anxious, and it rubbed off on Red. What if wifey had figured out the Everglades deal and decided to keep quiet and bide her time? In Red's worst nightmare, Joey would catch Chaz with his weenie in the wrong bun and become so enraged that she'd blab to the water dis-

trict about his phony samples. Trying to buy her silence would be useless because she didn't need the dough-according to Chaz, Joey was worth millions.

As the days had turned into weeks, Chaz seemed to calm down. He hadn't talked so much about his wife or what she might suspect, so Red Hammernut had assumed that the situation on the home front had ironed itself out. Suddenly Joey Perrone was dead, and now somebody was trying to blackmail Chaz. Or so he said. Red Hammernut couldn't rule out the possibility that the young man might be trying to rip him off; it would not be entirely out of character.