Free Tropical Freeze by James W. Hall Page A

androgen junkies.
    “We’re going to give you two weeks,” she said. “To convince yourself I’m right and to take care of him. You accomplish it, you’ve got complete immunity, witness protection, whatever you want. We’ll send in helicopters to pull you out if we have to, whatever it takes. The full deal.”
    “And if I don’t?”
    “You will,” she said. “You’ll call Adamson. You’ll check with whoever you want to at the bureau. You’ll see what I’m telling you is true. This is extremely volatile. It’s a boil that has to be lanced. And you, because you’re inside his security already, and because he thinks he has the upper hand with you, everyone agrees, you’re the logical person.”
    “Logical,” Gaeton said.
    She thought about it a moment more and said, “And because it’ll mean the bureau will owe you one, Gaeton, a very big one. It could turn things around for you, put you right back on the fast track. You should think about it.”
    “I’m not taking this fucking thing.” Gaeton flipped the pistol onto the bed.
    She looked at it. Picked up her purse, moved slowly to the door, and turned.
    “Then leave it here. Maybe the maid can use it.”
    After she’d gone, he sat on the side of the bed for a few more minutes. He could hear the morning news coming from the TV next door. Something about mines and harbors. He listened to that till he got back the strength to stand.

8
    “Whatta you mean, Thorn’s not interested?” Benny said.
    “Forget Thorn,” said Gaeton. “I’ve got somebody else.”
    It was near midnight on Saturday. They were sitting in a booth in the back room of the Green Turtle Inn on Islamorada. Benny in a sherbet concoction. A rumpled raspberry jacket, lime pants, a white T-shirt advertising a Jamaican beer. He was experimenting with an earring tonight. A gold conch shell dangled from his left ear. It’s what could happen when you spent twenty years in standard-issue Sears suits.
    “You must not’ve put it the right way to this asshole,” Benny said. “Give me his address. I’ll take a shot at him.”
    “I’m telling you, I got you a much better guy,” Gaeton said. “The guy I got in mind, he’s a great fisherman, and plus, he’s got the goods on every politician in the county. He’ll break you up.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “Let me talk to him first, see if he’s interested.”
    The late-night diners were clinking and clanking out front. The waitresses had lost all their hustle-bustle, now just smoking in a booth by the kitchen, watching the dawdlers. Benny was smiling from the four White Russians he’d had. He kept touching the fringe of black hair that circled his slick bald dome. He was getting all the hairs lined up to meet the constituents, the ones Gaeton had worked so hard setting up for him.
    The barmaid came back again.
    “Do us all again, sweet pea,” Benny said. “The boys in the booth, too.” He nodded at the three guys across the room, Benny’s tabernacle choir. All three still with their cop haircuts, square jaws. Their thick forearms resting on the table. All of them in guayaberas, one yellow and two whites.
    Benny swept his eyes across the darkened parking lot. A couple of retirees going home with their Styrofoam doggy box, fighting their way through the heavy wind.
    Benny said, “You sell me on Thorn, then you take it all back. What’s the deal?”
    “He’s busy, building his house,” Gaeton said. “Don’t worry, Benny. The guy I got in mind for you, he knows the water down here as well as anybody. You’ll love him.”
    Benny was still looking out the window. Or no, was he adoring his own reflection? Gaeton took a sip of his Budweiser.
    Benny fingered the gold conch shell at his ear. He brought his eyes away from the window, and said, “You give up too easy, Richards.” He smiled. “I haven’t met the man I couldn’t hire.”
    They traded looks. Gaeton felt a trickle of sweat sprout in his armpit.
    When the