"You want the gun?" Tool yelled from the embankment.

"I'm fine," Chaz snapped irritably.

With the golf club he hacked a path through the cattails, which had grown dense since he'd last visited this particular sampling site. The lush bloom was a bad sign, indicating a copious and harmful influx of agricultural-based phosphorus. The result was what legitimate biolo-

gists would call a "loss of characteristic calcareous periphyton mat." In plain English, it meant that Red Hammernut's farms were flushing so much fertilizer into the water that it was choking part of the Everglades to death.

If any of Dr. Charles Perrone's colleagues were to drive up unexpectedly and observe the proliferation of cattails, they would know instantly that Chaz had been faking the phosphorus readings. That was why he ordinarily uprooted the incriminating fuzz-tipped stalks, but today there were so many… and he was far too preoccupied to spend hours slashing in the muck.

Chaz groped at his crotch through the thick rubber leggings and thought: If I died now, they'd never get the coffin shut.

Sixteen hours after swallowing the blue pills, he still carried a baton in his pants. There was absolutely no sensation other than bulk, a numb and obstinate stiffness that even the creeping chill of the pond could not deflate. For Chaz it was the crudest of afflictions, an enduring yet pleasureless woody.

Hurriedly he dipped up the sample and flailed back toward the levee. Droopy-eyed from the drugs, Tool commented that it was the silliest goddamn job he ever heard of, fillin' bottles with swamp water.

"Does it pay good?" he asked. "I want a gig like this."

"Help me out of these waders," Chaz said. The gnats and flies that were tormenting him displayed no appetite for Tool, whose moist carpet of body hair served as a natural pest deterrent.

"Hurry up!" Chaz said, Tool tugging listlessly at the heavy leggings.

Considering his streak of bad luck, Chaz elected not to dump out the water sample at the site, as he sometimes did to avert the risk of leakage on the Hummer's sweet-smelling upholstery. It turned out to be a prescient decision-the capped Algine-brand container was positioned fortuitously on the front seat when they unexpectedly encountered Marta, Chaz's boss. She was driving her State of Florida pickup truck down the dike in the opposite direction, toward the spillway from which Chaz and Tool had departed. Chaz's rampaging paranoia was such that he refused to consider the possibility that Marta's appearance was part of a routine patrol.

"You're already done out here?" she asked.

Chaz nodded and held up the bottle of water.

"Want me to take that? I'm heading back to the office anyway," Marta offered.

"Oh, no. That's all right." Chaz gripped the container with both hands, in case Marta tried to reach in and snatch it. If she or any other scientist at the water district tested the sample for phosphorus, Chaz would be finished. So would Red Hammernut.

Predictably, Marta was taken aback by the sight of Tool in the passenger seat.

"Grad student," Chaz blurted. "He asked to ride along for a day. I didn't see the harm."

Tool might as well have been wearing a strapless evening gown, the way Marta was staring. "Where do you go to school?" she asked.

Tool turned inquiringly to Chaz, who said, "Florida Atlantic."

"Yeah," Tool grunted. "Floor Dilantic."

Marta smiled gamely. "Well, that's a good program. But you're supposed to sign a liability waiver if you're out in the field with district staff. In case of an accident or something."

"My fault. I forgot," Chaz volunteered, thinking: Thank God I covered the dead gator with my waders.

Marta turned her truck around and waved good-bye. As they followed her down the levee toward the highway, Tool said to Chaz, "Lookit you. Your hands are shakin'."

"Have you got any idea what would've happened if she'd seen"- Chaz was jerking his chin toward the backseat-"that?"

"Oh, I had a story all ready to go."

"I'm sure," Chaz said.

"Could say we found the poor thing shot on the dike and we was runnin' it to the vet doctor."

Brilliant, Chaz thought. An alligator ambulance service.

"My stomach's killing me," he muttered.

"Plus, they's a leech on your face."

"That's not funny."

"Just a lil'un." Tool pinched it off and flicked it out the window. "Damn, boy, you's white as a sheet. Maybe you oughta find another job. Seriously."

If only it were so simple, Chaz thought. He touched the tender spot on his cheek and wondered disconsolately if leech slime was toxic. The cell phone rang, but he made no move to grab it. Tool checked the caller ID and announced it was a blocked number.

When Chaz picked up, the blackmailer said: "You're right. We should do a meeting."

Again with the Chuck Heston voice, though it was easier on the nerves than the Jerry Lewis.

"Anytime," Chaz said. "Tell me where and when."

"Midnight. The boat docks down at Flamingo."

"I forget where that is."

"Invest in a map," the blackmailer said curtly, "and don't bother to bring the caveman."

Chaz said, "So it was you last night at the house."

"Yep. How was your hot date?"

"Very funny."

"Still, I was impressed by how quickly you've gotten past your grief."

"See you at midnight," Chaz Perrone said.

Joey stood alone in front of the bathroom mirror and said, "Girl, now you've gone and done it."

She had tried to be good, tried to stay the course. She'd even started a list:

1. He's too old for me.

2. I'm too young for him.

3. He's got a rotten track record.

4. I've got a rotten track record.

5. He's never heard of Alicia Keyes.

6. I've never heard of Karla Bonoff.

7. He lives on an island and shoots at strangers who mess with his dog.

8. I live-

That was as far as she'd gotten with her "Ten Sensible Reasons Not to Sleep with Mick Stranahan." Surely there were more than seven, but instead of knuckling down to remember them all, Joey had gone ahead and slept with him.

"You've lost your marbles," she told herself in the mirror. To make matters worse, it had been her idea. Three in the morning, she's lying alone in bed with the windows open and the taste of the ocean breeze on her tongue. Every time she shuts her eyes she hears this weird, steady chirping noise-screek, screek, screek-and every time she opens her eyes it stops. So the noise is strictly in her mind, driving her batty, when all of a sudden she figures out what it is: bed springs. The chirping noise inside her skull was the sound made by the mattress springs while Chaz was trying to hump his hippie date and Joey was under the bed.

Recalling that surreal scene-cowering like a trespasser in what was once her own bedroom, eavesdropping on the lustful exclamations of a man who was, until only a week ago, her own husband and partner- Joey had felt degraded and lonely and pathetic. She'd gotten up and quietly made her way to the living room, where Mick Stranahan was asleep on the couch. Gently she had squeezed beside him, telling herself at the time that all she wanted was a sympathy snuggle; somebody strong to hold her for a little while.

But once she had pressed herself against him and fell into the easy rhythm of his breathing, she'd realized that sweet platonic hugging wasn't going to cut it. She needed more.

"I'm so lame," she said, and splashed her face with cold water.

When she went outside, he was sitting on the seawall, talking on the cell phone. After he hung up, he asked her to sit down.

"You look about eighteen years old this morning," he said.

"Nice try, Mick."

"It's true." He whistled for Strom, who was nose-to-nose with a grumpy pelican.