Stranahan turned off the television. "I need to look around the house," he whispered. "Are you going to give me any trouble?"

"What a dumbass question. You bet I am."

Muffled pounding and a creepy, disharmonious mewl came from the direction of Chaz's bedroom.

"Are you a friend of Mr. Perrone?" Stranahan asked the hairy stranger.

"I'm his bodyguard. And I been waitin' days for this."

The man got up and trailed Stranahan out of the room.

"Where do you think you're goin'?" he demanded. "What the hell're you lookin' for?"

Stranahan turned and said, "Friend of mine. A lady friend."

The man scratched thoughtfully at his crotch.

"Go ahead and knock me on my ass," Stranahan told him. "I'll probably holler like a baby, but at least it'll spook everybody out where I can see who's who."

The man said, "You nuts, or what?"

"It's not much of a plan," Stranahan conceded, "but it was the best I could do on short notice."

The goon seized him by the collar and began moving toward the back door. Stranahan used the man's own momentum to steer him into a corner, then drove an elbow into his Adam's apple. The man didn't pitch over right away, so Stranahan followed with a right hook to the base of the neck, throwing all his weight into the punch. The man toppled, swiping blindly as he fell. The house shuddered to its beams.

Stranahan ducked outside, circled to the front and crouched behind the Hummer in the driveway. Inside, the bodyguard erupted with a hellish howl as he regained respiratory function. The frizzy-haired woman was the first to bolt, her flip-flops spanking on the walkway as she galloped for her car. Stranahan waited two full minutes after she was gone. When no one else emerged, he retraced his path to the kitchen window. There he saw Chaz Perrone, standing naked in a posture of helplessness over the prone, flopping figure of the ape man. In profile a pistol was visible in Chaz's right hand; beneath that, a jutting manifestation of sexual readiness.

Stranahan heard the nearby slam of a heavy door and, moments later, an automotive ignition. His pulse was pounding as he hurdled a hedge of ixoras and ran toward the road. The Suburban was moving away slowly, lights off. Stranahan waved his arms as he ran after it, thinking: Surely she'll be checking the rearview, after what just happened. Any sane person would worry about being chased.

Finally, at the far end of the block, the brake lights flashed and the passenger door swung open. Mick Stranahan jumped inside and motioned for Joey to hit the accelerator.

Ten miles later, when he finished lecturing her about taking crazy chances, she said, "Nice haircut, sport."

"Hey, at least I don't smell like a Dumpster at Woodstock."

Joey smiled mischievously. "That's not what Chaz thought."

Tool was in a more talkative mood since they'd detoured to a convalescent center so he could "pop in" on somebody named Maureen. Obviously she was his hot new drug connection; probably a rogue nurse, Chaz Perrone had surmised while watching Tool configure an array of fresh fentanyl patches on his shaven shoulders.

"Tell me about your wife," Tool said on the long drive west.

Chaz was caught off guard. "What about her?"

"What was she like before she died?" Tool asked.

"Beautiful. Blond. Smart. Funny."

It was a part of Chaz's widower script that required no rehearsal, because it was the truth. Nonetheless, he found it disquieting to speak the words aloud, as if they reminded some weak and sentimental part of him what he'd lost. Disdainfully he appraised the stubborn, useless bulge in his trousers.

"So how come you ain't all sad and blue?" Tool asked.

"Who says I'm not."

Tool gave a salacious laugh. "It's only been-what, a week?-and already you're on pussy patrol."

"If you're talking about that woman who came over last night," Chaz said, "she was a professional masseuse."

"Yeah, and I'm a fuckin' astronaut. Come on, Doc, what happened 'tween you and your old lady?"

"None of your damn business."

"Aw, relax," Tool said.

Chaz was annoyed by Tool's prying, though he realized that interpersonal sensitivity was not a signature trait among crew bosses on vegetable farms. In fact, the question posed by Tool could just as easily have come from any of Chaz's golfing buddies, and the answer- although it could never be uttered-was simple: Joey knew too much. Or if she didn't know, she certainly suspected.

What other choice did Chaz have but to kill her? If the Everglades scam was exposed, the media would have crucified him; a bribe-taking biologist would be front-page news even in a sewer of corruption like South Florida. Chaz surely would have been sent to prison or whacked by Red Hammernut, or possibly both.

He found it ironic that, if the truth ever came out, Tool more than anybody would appreciate the cojones that it took to throw Joey off the cruise liner.

As they approached the pump station, Chaz stopped on the shoulder of the levee and kept the engine running. The marsh shimmered under azure skies that stretched as far as the horizon, but Chaz would have been infinitely more relaxed in the parking garage of a shopping mall. He dreaded having to forsake the steel embrace of his Humvee for the loathsome, predator-infested wilderness.

Tool said, "Nice'n peaceful out here."

"Yeah. Paradise."

"What, you'd rather be sittin' bumper-to-bumper on 1-95? Are you sick in the head?"

Chaz leaned on the horn to frighten off lurking panthers. Ignoring Tool's puzzled scowl, he said, "Okay, let's get it over with."

Then he climbed down from the Hummer and began changing into his wading gear. Tool examined the new red seal on the left front tire and pronounced it airtight-that was how Chaz's morning had begun, with a flat. The steak knife protruding from the tread had come from the set in his own kitchen, and Chaz assumed that the culprit was the same man who'd broken into the house and tangled with Tool.

"Hey, lookit the gator." Tool pointed to a four-footer nosing curiously out of the saw grass.

"Adorable," Chaz said.

"He's a chunky little sumbitch, huh?"

"Sure is." Chaz thinking: It's like I died and woke up on the fucking Discovery Channel.

He was unsheathing die two-iron when he heard gunfire, prompting him to dive beneath the Humvee. Peeking out, he saw Tool sloshing out of the saw grass and up the embankment, dragging the limp alligator by its tail. The butt of Chaz's pawnshop.38 was visible in a front pocket of the goon's overalls.

Perfect, Chaz thought bleakly. He could see the headline: everglades BIOLOGIST BUSTED FOR POACHING.

"Ever tried one a these?" Tool was grinning as he presented the dead animal for inspection. "The way to do it, you batter the chunks and fry 'em in peanut oil."

Not so long ago, the egregious stupidity of plugging a gator would have propelled Chaz into a tirade. Now he wearily accepted such incidents as further proof that life was unraveling beyond his control. In an act of laughable futility, he tried to explain to Tool that shooting a federally protected species was a crime punishable by heavy fines and prison time. Tool chuckled and told him not to worry, the evidence would be gone after supper.

As Tool loaded the oozing corpse into the back of the Humvee, Chaz stepped aside without objection. He was well beyond his default thresholds of shock, disgust or even anger. He picked up the two-iron, clipped a sample-collection container to his waders and trudged into the brown water.

"Need a hand?" Tool, calling from the shore.

"No, sir," Chaz said.

His confidence in Tool's bodyguarding skills had been eroded by the man's lackluster performance against last night's intruder, who-by Tool's own bitter account-was eighty pounds lighter and twenty years older than Tool himself. That the prowler had fled unscathed from Chaz's home was less discouraging than the fact that Red's hired goon had been left blubbering and puking on the floor. Tool had spent the rest of the night in loud recuperation, an ice-filled towel wrapped around his throat. His description of the attacker matched no one known to Chaz Perrone, who figured it was a seasoned thug recruited by Detective Rolvaag as part of the blackmail enterprise. When Tool announced his intention to dismember the intruder the next time their paths crossed, Chaz had to restrain himself from sarcasm.