American Tropic

Several miles ahead of Hard Puppy’s SUV, the narrow road curves into a pine-tree forest. Out of the forest, a Key deer emerges. The deer’s thin, graceful body is coated with apricot-and-fawn-colored fur, its short white tail stiffly upright. The deer sniffs the air for danger and waits. Other Key deer emerge from the pine trees; they follow the lead deer alongside the empty road to a patch of grass growing next to the asphalt. The deer graze on the grass, their noses down alongside the edge of the road.

The tranquil night silence around the Key deer is broken by the rocketing whine from the SUV’s four-hundred-horsepower engine firing off on its V-8 cylinders. The deer stop grazing and look up. The SUV careens around the corner of the road into sight, the harsh rush of its large tires racing over asphalt. The deer bolt and scatter into the trees. One confused deer stays behind, frozen with fear in the center of the road. The three-ton SUV smashes into the deer. The small body catapults forward through the air.

The SUV’s wide tires burn to a stop. Hard stumbles out of the vehicle into the beams of its halogen headlights. He squints at what the bright beams illuminate. Lying twenty feet ahead, on black asphalt, is the bleeding body of the deer. He turns away from the animal and kneels in front of the SUV’s crosshatch chrome grille. He runs his finger below the grille, along a dent in the thick bumper. He looks back angrily at the deer lying on the blacktop. “You little midget shit! Should be locked in a zoo! Messed with my ride!”

A high-pitched, eerie whistling comes from the pine forest at the edge of the highway. Hard’s head snaps around. He looks belligerently into the trees, shouting toward the sound. “They be more of you midget f*ckers in there? Come on out! I’ll put my pit bull on you! She chase you down and chew your a*shole out!”

The strange, eerie whistling stops. Hard sees no movement among the trees. He shrugs his shoulders impatiently and climbs back into the SUV. He slams the door and rolls down his driver’s-side window. He cocks his head out the open window to listen. He hears nothing. He rolls up his window and restarts the SUV.

Next to Hard, the two party girls stare wide-eyed through the windshield at an apparition emerging from the dark forest. The girls shudder and lock their arms tightly around each other. Hard sees the apparition. His words spit out in surprise: “F*ck me! What be him?”

Walking out of the forest into the SUV’s headlights is the Bizango skeleton, encased in tight rubber and skull mask. Bizango stops in the center of the road and holds up a speargun loaded with a sharp, cocked spear.

Inside the SUV’s back cab, the pit bull sees the black-and-white skeleton. The dog’s deep, murderous bark reverberates in the cab as it hurls its body against the iron cage bars, thrashing to break through and attack Bizango.

The girls scream hysterically. Hard shouts above the screaming and barking: “Everybody shut up!” He glares at Bizango through the windshield. “Don’t mess with me, mo-fo! You be doomed! Time to let the dog out!”

Hard jumps from the SUV and runs around to the rear hatch door; he yanks the door open. The pit bull—inside its cage, behind bars—howls at Hard to be freed. Hard unlatches the cage’s steel lock and swings the door back. “Go, you hyena! Rip his a*shole out!”

The snarling pit bull leaps from its cage, knocking Hard aside. The dog hits the outside pavement running, its clawed paws digging in as it propels its muscular body upward and hurls furiously through the air at the skeleton standing in the middle of the road.

Bizango whips up the speargun, aims, and pulls the trigger. The gun’s C2 cartridge fires in a whoosh. The spear springs free in a blurred trajectory, its flight meeting the opposite rush of the dog in midair. The spear pierces with a crunching thwack into the bone bulge of the dog’s rib cage. The dog howls, but its body keeps hurling forward through the air at Bizango. The dog’s weight falls from the air, drops with a bouncing thud at the skeleton’s feet. Bizango looks down at the dog, its barrel-shaped body inert, its bloodied tongue hanging out onto the asphalt, its startled, dying eyes staring up. Bizango reaches down and rips out the bloody spear from the dog’s rib cage.

Hard jumps back into the SUV’s driver’s seat. He peers through the windshield at Bizango outside and grits his platinum teeth. “You killed my bitch! Nobody lives who kills my bitch!” He grips the steering wheel tight with both hands, jams his foot to the floor on the accelerator pedal, and yells above the whining engine, “Mother-f*ckin’ spook! You die!”

The SUV roars straight toward the skeleton. Bizango quickly reloads the gun with the bloody spear and reels back from the SUV as it speeds by, just an inch away, in a rush of wind. Bizango fires the gun. The spear shatters the glass of the driver’s-side window. It flies right behind Hard’s head and smashes out the window on the opposite side of the cab. The SUV keeps going. The snarl from its engine fades away into silence.

Bizango walks to the small deer lying on the blacktop. The deer gasps for breath; its eyes bulge. Bizango’s black rubber fingers wipe blood away from the deer’s nostrils. Its body jolts with a life-releasing electric shock, then becomes deathly still.

Bizango stares at the deer. From the surrounding forest, a throb of insects starts, crickets chirp, frogs croak. Bizango gently lifts up the deer in skeleton arms. Bizango’s masked skull head swivels up to the sky as the dead body is raised toward the stars above.



Cackling bantam chickens scratch and peck in the dust outside the front door of a flimsy boarded shack beaten gray by weather and time. The chickens scatter as Noah walks between them and up the steps. The shack’s door is open; inside the shadowy depths sits a dark-skinned African-Cuban woman wearing a flowing white cotton dress. The bones of her nearly century-old body are twig-thin, and her small skull is pulled tight with wrinkled skin. She rocks back and forth in a creaky chair as she fans herself with a folded magazine in the stifling heat. She calls out to Noah from the shadows, “Comes ins. I bees ’spectin’ you.”

Noah steps out of the sun into near darkness and stands awkwardly. “How did you know I was coming?”

“All de mins, dey comin’ to Auntie sooner de betters. Dey gots de dollar problems, dey gots de love problems. An’ ol’ Auntie, she’s ’bout fixin’ de cure. Nothin’ Auntie cain’t fix, from an emptied wallet to a bustin’ heart. I sees yo got de womins problems. Dat’s why yo comin’ to me.”

Noah pulls his pint bottle of rum from his frayed coat pocket and takes a swig, then wipes his lips. He stays silent. He slips the pint back into his pocket.

Auntie waves her hand around the cramped room. Faded photographs of black saints torn from faith-healing magazines are tacked to the walls. The rafters are hung with bundles of dried herbs and flowers of every type, color, and scent. The countertops are piled with tins containing exotic powders, oils, and extracts. Dusty glass jars are filled with bent coins and rusted nails. Auntie claps her age-polished white palms together and stops rocking in her chair. She pushes up on an ebony cane toward Noah. “I be knowin’ ’bout womins makin’ de mins cry! Yo come runnin’ to me’s cryin’ like de lost boy.” She pulls a matchstick out of a box and strikes it; the flame flares. She lights a votive candle inside a red jar with the image of a Black Virgin painted on the glass. She hands the jar to Noah. “Hold dis tight.”

Noah grips the jar. Auntie studies his illuminated face in the glow of the burning candle. Her trembling bony hand comes up and feels the contours of his face. She shakes her head; her stringy white hair covers her face as she speaks. “Yo mighty bad. Yo gots only de one womin in life to loves. Dat womin bees runnin’ away hard. Yo never goin’ catch her ’less yo listens to de Auntie.”

“I hope it isn’t going to be expensive to win the race.”

“What bees de price of love?”

Noah sets down the votive jar and takes from his pocket a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill. “I heard around town that you could help me win the race.”

Auntie pushes the offered money away. “Put dat debil green paper back in yo pocket. Where I bees headed, dey don’ take dats. Dey takes only de pure of de hearts.”

Noah slips the bill back into his pocket and pulls out the rum bottle. He takes a swallow as he watches Auntie hobble around the room on her cane.

Auntie unhooks from the wall a straw basket hanging from a nail. She takes the basket to a tall cupboard and opens its door, exposing shelves rowed with glass vials filled with leaves and petals of crushed and ground plants and flowers. She pulls vials out, uncorking each and sniffing it, her nostrils twitching at the heady aromas. She recorks all the vials and packs them in the basket. She hobbles back to Noah and hands him the basket with a knowing wink. “Dese will wins back yo true love.” Her eyes glow with pride at the glass vials in the basket. She taps each vial’s corked top as she explains their ingredients: “Dis one bees de ginger root to entice her. Here bees dried strawberries to unlock her secrets. Of course, passionflower to soften de heart, and verbena oil to bees keepin’ her loves.”

“How can I win the race with this stuff?”

“Yo gots to trust de Auntie. Puts verbena oil in her water glass. Strawberries in de soup. Ginger root on de fish. Passionflower in her dessert.”

“That’s everything? You sure you didn’t leave anything out?”

“Dese will do de trick. Only one mo’ thing.”

“Tell me.”

Auntie hobbles over to a carved chest and creaks open its heavy lid. She pulls out a small purple velvet bag and smiles at Noah. “If yo gets close enough to her, rub dis on her earlobes. She bees a juicy peach for de pickin’.”

“You don’t know my Zoe. Right now she’s more of a hard pit than a soft fruit.” Noah takes the velvet bag and feels its weight. “What’s inside?”

“Rare in de natures. Royal jelly from de Brazilian queen bee.”

“This is my last chance before my wife becomes my ex-wife.” Noah pockets the bag. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“No needs de thanks, only de belief. But de magics don’ works ’less yo gives up dat demon rum in a bottle yo suckin’ on all de day long like a starvin’ babies pulled from de mommies’ teet. Alcohol bees de magics-killer. Dat demon goin’ pull you all de ways down into de hells.”



The outdoor food market is crowded with island locals and tourists jostling one another between open-air stalls piled with vivid mounds of tropical fruits and vegetables. Noah stops before one of the stalls and chooses from the exotic selection of purple plantain bananas, brown tamarind, yellow egg-fruit, orange loquat, blue-speckled mangoes, and green sweetsop. He moves on to a stall with a palm-thatched roof, protecting it from the overhead sun, where fresh sea fare is sprawled across iced trays. He studies the wet display of octopus, crab, horse conch, tuna, shark, dolphinfish, grouper, stingray, and snapper. He pokes a finger against an open-mouthed black grouper, then jabs a fat red snapper.

The stall’s monger, gripping a curved-blade gutting knife in his hand and wearing a white rubber apron streaked with fish blood, suspiciously watches Noah poking the fish. The monger shouts with gruff irritation: “Why you pokin’ that snapper? You gonna eat it … or you gonna make love to it?”

“Both.”

“Then, buddy, that’s not the one for you.” The monger looks over the colorful fish arrayed on the iced trays. He slaps the bright scales of a yellowfin tuna. “Here’s the one. She’s got a firm body and clear eyes.”

“I’ll take her.”



On the Gulf side of Key West, known as Land’s End, where once shrimping, fishing, and turtling boats were docked years before, are anchored tourist sunset cruise and glass-bottom boats, elaborate yachts, and fancy sailboats. Facing this leisure-time fleet is an open-sided restaurant serving buckets of peel-your-own shrimp and platters of shell-shucked gritty oysters. At the edge of the farthest dock is a long wooden shed where shark bodies by the hundreds were once piled before being reduced to fillet slabs, severed fins, and skins. The shed is now filled with a selection of souvenir postcards, T-shirts, seashell necklaces, suntan lotion, and plastic sandals. To the side of the shed is a concrete saltwater holding pen. The deep-water pen is the last of the turtle kraals constructed in the 1890s, where captured turtles were dumped by the boatload from docked schooners to be slaughtered for steaks, soup, combs, and toothbrush handles.

At the top edge of the concrete pen, Luz stands staring down into the water. She watches trapped snook and barracuda kept as a tourist attraction. The fish dart back and forth in silver flashes, searching for a way out.

The Chief comes up behind Luz and stands alongside her. He hands over a thick manila envelope. “Here it is, promised I’d get it. I’ve got pull with the boys in a state-of-the-art Miami lab. Told them it was for an important case when I sent the blood samples. They fast-tracked it through.”

“I suppose I should say thanks, but I don’t know what it says.” Luz takes the envelope. “Have you read it?”

“I wouldn’t know how to read it—too technical, cutting-edge DNA-predisposition genetic stuff. Only a few labs in the country can do this. It’s what you wanted.”

“You don’t have such a happy face. Did they tell you what it says?”

“Of course they told me.” The Chief looks down at the circling fish in the water. “I don’t know how I’d react if I got this news. Jump off a bridge maybe, stay at home twenty-four/seven with my family, go up on a mountaintop to meditate, or shoot heroin.”

Luz scrapes her fingernails across the thick envelope, cutting into the paper.

The Chief looks back at her. “I hate to say this, but, because of how the testing worked out, you should quit the force.”

“Never.”

“Go home and be with Carmen and Joan.”

“No, they would know why I was there, just sitting around the house. It’s better if life goes on, and they are strong with that. It’s too much for them to bear after what happened to Nina. They couldn’t go through it. They’d be crushed.”

“Given this new information, I could ask for your resignation. This can jeopardize your job performance. You’re still fit now, but any day that could change.”

“I won’t quit while Bizango is still out there.”

“I’ll make you a deal. Stay on until Bizango is caught, then go home to your family.”

Luz turns and gives the Chief a firm handshake. “It’s a deal. I can live with that.”

“It has to be. I can’t take the chance of keeping you on.”

Luz peers down into the pen; she sees her own reflection on the water’s surface above the snook and barracuda making their futile runs at freedom. “I used to come here after school as a kid. Back then they kept a six-hundred-seventy-five-pound loggerhead turtle in this pen. He was a hundred thirty-nine years old, and famous for biting off the fingers of the turtle hunters who captured him in the ocean. Big George, they called him. He was a celebrity, a real tourist attraction, the biggest turtle in the world in captivity. Every day I’d throw a head of lettuce into the water for George. George would circle around the pen, then cut above the surface and give a big blow of water as he went for the floating lettuce. George wasn’t a meat eater. He loved lettuce.”

The Chief stands closer to Luz, his shoulder touching hers. “The DNA results I brought you don’t lie. You don’t have much time left. You already knew your breast cancer came back, but this test turned up two different kinds of cancer waiting to spread. You’ve got a deadly trifecta going. I just want you to understand: should you change your mind and decide to walk away from the force now, no one will say you didn’t serve honorably. In fact, everyone will say how brave you were to hang in so long.”

Luz doesn’t look up from the water. “I remember the day George died. When he gasped his last breath in this pen, he was slaughtered and made into soup and combs. I was inconsolable. I cried myself to sleep every night after. My dad gave me five dollars to go buy myself something to cheer me up. I went to the Catholic church—they have a grotto there with a life-size Virgin statue inside. You can pay money to light a candle for the Virgin to protect you from hurricanes, or answer your prayers. With the five bucks, I lit up all the candles in the grotto for Big George.”

The Chief turns away from the pen and steps back. He pulls out his wallet and takes out a five-dollar bill. “What do you say”—he holds up the bill with a grin—“we go to the grotto and light us some candles.”



Zoe sits at Noah’s kitchen table, wearing a bare-shouldered halter-top sundress. Her blond hair is swept up in a French knot, exposing diamond-stud earrings in her lobes. She watches with fascination as Noah works at the stove over pots and pans of steaming and frying food. “When did you take up cooking?”

Noah carefully flips two yellowfin-tuna fillets simmering in a pan over a gas flame. “I’ve only recently become interested in the alchemy of the culinary arts.” He uncorks a glass vial and spreads crushed ginger root on the fish. He opens the oven door and sprinkles passionflower petals onto a baking plantain-banana pie.

“ ‘Alchemy of the culinary arts’? You make it sound like something exotic. Women cook every day. No big deal.” She picks up the water glass in front of her and takes a sip. Her mouth puckers. “This water tastes like it’s got bitter lemon in it or something.”

“Do you like it?”

Zoe smacks her lips. “It’s tangy. I don’t know if I like it or not.”

“Would you like something more than water?”

“Like some rum, maybe?”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m just trying to be a good husband.”

“A good husband? Too late for that. I gave you every chance a woman can give. I brought the final divorce document with me. All you have to do is sign it.”

Noah opens the refrigerator door and takes out a bowl of strawberry soup. “At least we can have dinner; here’s the first course.” He places the bowl in front of her and sits close.

“What a weird-looking soup.” She bends her head and sniffs at the pink concoction with red nuggets of dried strawberries floating on top.

Noah scoops a spoonful of soup from the bowl and holds it up to her lips.

Zoe laughs nervously. “I’m not sure I want this. What do you know about cooking, anyway?”

“There’s only one way to find out. Close your eyes and take a sip.”

She doesn’t close her eyes.

“Trust me.”

Zoe reluctantly shuts her eyes. Noah moves the spoon near her parting lips. He slides the spoon into her mouth, spilling a trickle of soup onto her lips. She keeps her eyes closed as she swallows. Her lips glisten a bright strawberry-pink. He places his hand under her chin, turning her face up to kiss her.

Her eyes open. “It’s delicious! What bizarre stuff did you put in this? I want the recipe!”

“Only strawberries and sugar.”

She licks the red residue off her lips. “No, I taste something else.”

“I put my love in it. All my love.”

Zoe flinches at the sudden intimacy. She looks at the empty rum bottle in the center of the table. A burning candle is stuck in the bottle’s narrow neck.

Noah touches one of the bright stones on her earlobe. “These are the earrings I gave you on our wedding day.”

“Don’t get any ideas. I just wore them because they go with this dress.”

“And I bought you that dress for our first wedding anniversary. It still fits you like a silk glove.”

“I told you not to get any ideas.” She stares at the empty rum bottle in the center of the table. Inside the bottle, at its bottom, is her gold wedding ring. “I see my ring is exactly where it was when I was here the last time.”

“There’s a prize in each and every bottle of rum.”

She looks back at him. “You haven’t been drinking tonight. Why?”

“I stopped. Trying to walk the sober trail.”

“Famous first words.”

“I quit for you.”

“Famous last words. We’ll see how long that lasts.”

They fall into silence, watching the candle in the bottle burn. The ring inside the bottle shines.

He shifts his gaze back to her earrings. “I think your diamonds have lost their sparkle.”

She pats her ears. “Really? I think they still look good.”

“They aren’t as lustrous as when I first gave them to you. Someone told me that the only way to bring back the original sparkle of diamonds is to rub royal jelly from the Brazilian queen bee on them.”

“And I’ll bet Mr. Alchemist the Cook has some of that jelly stuff around here somewhere, don’t you?”

Noah slips from his coat pocket a purple velvet bag. He unties the bag and pulls out a corked glass vial containing honey-colored jelly. He opens the vial and dips a finger into the jelly. He rubs the jelly onto one of her diamond earrings, then massages the slick substance into the soft skin of her surrounding earlobe.

Her words come with intimate breathiness. “Are they sparkling yet?”

He leans close to her, his lips almost touching hers as he whispers, “Sparkling, like the sun. Radiant, like you.”

Zoe pulls back and stands. She grabs her purse from a chair and snaps it open, taking out a bundled stack of papers. She slaps the bundle on the table. “I said this would be our last dinner.”

“But you only tasted the soup.”

“No more games. Sign the divorce papers.” She turns to leave.

Noah leaps up and grabs her arm. “Wait, I’ll walk you home.”

“Walk me home? I don’t need you to walk me home. I’m a big girl.”

“It’s dark outside. There’s a killer on the loose.”

“A killer on the loose?” She stares into Noah’s eyes with a sudden illumination. “It’s you, isn’t it? You’ve been the one following me home at night after I close up the bar.”

“Of course it was me. I told you, it’s not safe.”

“I don’t need a knight on a white horse to protect me! I just need a sober man who believes in himself and is one hundred percent present!” She spins around and walks out.

Noah slumps back down on the chair at the table. His lips turn down as he looks at the stack of divorce papers. His fingers drum lightly on the papers, then drum harder and harder. His hands begin shaking uncontrollably. He shoves his chair back with a loud scrape against the floor. He turns the flame off beneath the pan of burning fish. He yanks open a cupboard and pulls out a full bottle of rum. He opens the bottle and tilts it toward his mouth; the glass tip of the bottle touches his trembling lips. He turns swiftly, holding the bottle upside down over the sink next to him. He watches the dark rum flow down the sink drain and disappear. He stares at the empty bottle with a look of shocked remorse. “Goddamn, that was stupid!” He grabs the hard edge of the sink, his knuckles white against the porcelain as he holds on. “But I’ve got to try!” His body begins shaking violently as he fights against the barbed blood rush of alcohol deprivation consuming him.



Luz drives her white Charger slowly along Duval Street. She keeps a vigilant watch on the tourists and locals navigating their way along the crowded, hot sidewalk in the humidity of the high-noon day. A police dispatcher’s voice crackles from the car’s radio speaker.

“Alpha-zero-zero-eight. Respond to Code Five at Blue Hole Key Deer Refuge on Big Pine Key!”

Luz wheels her car around with the siren wailing and heads down a narrow side alley. At the end of the alley, Hogfish appears, pedaling his bicycle directly at the car. Luz stomps on the brakes; the car skids, its front bumper stopping just before smashing into Hogfish.

Hogfish rises up on the cracked leather seat of his bicycle. He points his bony finger at Luz and shouts above her car’s siren: “The statue angel guarding Nina’s grave will protect her! El Finito won’t be able to dig up Nina and violate her when his devil’s breath blows this island to hell!” Hogfish slams his butt back down on the bicycle seat. “Almost Halloween! Finito’s almost here!” He pedals away in a manic fury.

Luz revs her Charger’s engine and drives off, quickly leaving behind Key West’s narrow streets. The red outside lights of her car flash as she speeds north on the broad concrete ribbon of the Overseas Highway, skimming above the vast ocean. She crosses over a series of bridges linking the highway from island to island. On one side of the highway suddenly looms a billboard announcing ENTERING NATIONAL KEY DEER REFUGE. Luz wheels the Charger into a hard turn after the sign and travels a gravel road into a pine-tree forest. Her car bumps along the road, kicking up a stream of dust. The gravel road abruptly dead-ends. A dirt trail is ahead, leading deeper into the forest. Blocking the trail is a row of parked police cars. She slows her Charger and cuts the engine.

Moxel stands in front of his squad car, his beefy arms crossed tightly over his broad chest. He bends down and peers at Luz through her car window. “You won’t believe what’s at the Blue Hole. I’m the one who found it. Already got law enforcement from half the county here.”

Luz swings her door open and steps out, knocking Moxel back. “You’re a hero. Always the first one to bag the big stuff. Why wasn’t I called in earlier?”

“No reason for you to have rushed. We’re miles away from Key West jurisdiction. We’re in County Sheriff territory.”

“What did you find?”

Moxel fires a sharp spit at the dirt trail. “Why don’t you just trot along to have a peeky-poo for yourself.”

Luz follows the trail as it twists through tall, spindly trees. She comes to the end of the trail, where the forest abruptly opens up into a vast clearing. Before her is the Blue Hole, a lake of intense bright-blue water filling the depths of a former coral-rock quarry. The pathway to the Blue Hole is blocked by stretched yellow crime-scene tape. On the far side of the tape, forensic investigators, dressed in white jumpsuits and wearing white latex gloves, scour the area.

Standing at the shoreline of the Blue Hole, the Key West Police Chief and the uniformed County Sheriff converse intensely with a police diver who wears a swimsuit, face mask, and rubber foot flippers, and holds a long pole with a cloth net attached to its tip. He nods to the Chief and Sheriff, then wades into the Blue Hole’s water up to his shoulders. He swims out to the center of the Hole, holding the long pole in one hand above his head. He treads water, lowers the pole, and skims the net across the water’s surface toward a round floating object. He scoops up the object with the net and swims back toward the shore.

The Chief spots Luz standing behind the stretched yellow tape. He walks to her and lifts the tape, beckoning her to step through. “You’re going to be surprised what Moxel found floating in the Hole this morning.”

Luz steps under the tape. “What was Moxel doing here?”

“Fishing. Some big ones in these waters if the gators don’t get them first. Place is crawling with gators.”

“Why was I called in so late?”

“I told Moxel to have you radio-dispatched right away, an hour ago. This ties into our investigation.”

“Moxel waited. I just got the call.”

“Forget it. Come with me.”

Luz follows the Chief to the Blue Hole. The diver emerges from the water onto the muddy shore, holding the long pole; inside the dripping net is the severed head of Hard Puppy, his face lacerated with crisscrossed purple gashes, his eyes plucked out, and his ears slashed off.

Luz exhales with surprise. “Looks like he was attacked by his own pit bulls. They chewed his head off.”

The Chief nods at Hard’s lips, sewn crudely shut with fishing line. “Pit bulls can’t do that. That’s Bizango. Bizango fed Hard to the gators.”

“Can’t know the gators ate him until the forensics come in.”

The Chief slips off a pair of binoculars slung around his neck on a leather strap. He hands the binoculars to Luz and points across the Blue Hole to the opposite shore. “Check out that bad-ass scene over there.”

Luz looks through the lenses. Across the water, on the far shore, she sees three twelve-foot green-scaled alligators bellied in the mud. The alligators’ nostrils are flared; the jaws of their snouted mouths gape open, exposing long rows of razor-sharp teeth.

The Chief prods Luz. “It gets worse. Look above the gators.”

Luz raises the binoculars and refocuses beyond the alligators on the muddy bank. She spots a lone pine tree. The brittle bark of the tree’s trunk is spray-painted with a red X. From the center of the X protrudes a steel spear shining in the sunlight.



A sleek seventy-foot-long sport-fishing boat plows through the water at twenty knots. Big Conch is strapped by a leather shoulder harness into a teakwood marlin-fighting chair on the boat’s aft deck. His bare, broad chest strains against the leather straps as he leans into the bow of his fourteen-foot-long fishing rod, its line spinning out from the reel. Big’s line runs farther out into the white-water wake left behind the boat’s diesel-engine thrust. With the rod’s butt anchored in the fighting chair’s steel gimbal between his legs, he reels hard to recapture the line. The muscles of his arms bulge and sweat breaks out on his face. The tip of the pole curves and bends almost double, on the verge of breaking.

The boat’s first mate stands behind Big in the fighting chair. The mate whoops with appreciation at Big’s skill, urging him on. “You got her now!”

Big bellows at the mate, “How many runs am I up to?”

“Over twenty! She’s been running in and out for the last three hours!”

Big presses his chest forward against the leather harness as the bent pole’s line whirs back out. Diesel-exhaust smoke clouds up around him from the boat’s engines’ backing down into reverse to follow the running marlin.

The mate shouts, “Don’t buck the reel! Let her take the line or you’ll snap the rod!”

Big hollers above the reel’s screech, “Shut up, a*shole! Don’t tell me the obvious!”

Behind the boat, the roiling water parts and a massive blue marlin sails high into the air. The marlin’s muscular body twists for freedom in a mighty shake against the barbed hook sunk deep into its bill. The fish lurches its full body upright, trying to throw the line, its long bill pointed skyward as it tail-dances in skipping leaps over the surface of the ocean.

The mate whoops at the top of his lungs. “Look at that! She’s a record breaker!”

The marlin dives out of sight.

Big reels back quickly on the line’s sudden slack. “That was her last run! She’s gotta be played out! I’m bringing her in! Get the gaff!”

The mate grabs a long steel gaff with a snarl hook at its end. He leans over the transom with the gaff, eager for action.



Big Conch’s sport-fishing boat cuts a wide wake through the surface of the water. From atop its twenty-five-foot-high aluminum crow’s-nest lookout, a cloth pennant rips in the hot wind. On the white pennant is the black image of a marlin. Big stands in the cockpit of his boat with the mahogany-wood helm gripped in his hands. The mate works on the bloodied deck, lashing down the giant fish.

Ahead of Big’s boat, a floating dark speck appears on the horizon. Big turns his mahogany helm, steering toward the speck. The speck grows larger, finally coming into full view. It is a thirty-six-foot West Indian Heritage trawler with a radio-transmitter antenna bolted to its deck. The trawler is silhouetted against the sky, its name across the hull, Noah’s Lark. Big slows his boat.

Inside the trawler’s pilothouse, Noah looks through the window at the sport-fishing boat with Big at the helm. He idles his engine and goes outside onto the deck.

Big bellows across the water at Noah: “Hey, pirate! You’ve lost your treasure! Heard Zoe’s divorcing you for good!” He laughs and throttles up his fourteen-hundred-horsepower engines with a guttural diesel roar. His boat speeds into a tight circle around Noah.

Noah’s trawler rocks from the high wakes roiled by the larger boat. The trawler violently lists to its side, slamming Noah to the deck. A wave crashes over him, washing him to the deck’s edge. He reaches out and grabs the steel strut of the radio-transmitter antenna to keep from being swept overboard.

Big circles his speeding boat closer, causing higher-curling waves to smash against the trawler’s hull.

The trawler rolls up, then lurches low, tipping into a near-capsizing slant. Noah clings to the radio tower with one hand. He raises his other hand and stiffens his middle finger at Big. His voice soars above the roar of Big’s engines: “F*ck you!”

Big’s voice booms back: “Truth Dog! Sink to the bottom of the sea! Maybe you’ll find your dick down there!”

Noah opens his mouth to shout back but chokes on an incoming wave of seawater. He coughs hard, gasping desperately for air, as he hangs on to the tower for his life.



A long Key West’s sport-fishing pier, boats are tied up in a row. At the end of the pier, Big and his mate stand with a crowd of sunburnt fishermen. The men watch with anticipation as Big’s huge blue marlin is hoisted by a pulley chain hanging from an iron weighing scale.

A craggy old fisherman wearing fish-gut-stained khaki trousers and a frayed long-billed cap comes up next to Big and nudges him. “Hey, fella, what’d you hit her with?”

Big keeps his eyes on the marlin being hoisted as he answers. “Used a naked horse-ballyhoo rig at first. Can’t trust ’em, a bitch getting a solid hook setup. Kept losing fish all morning. Switched over to a braided polyethylene ballyhoo lead with a J-hook lure and no skirt attached. Nailed her.”

“That polyethylene lead is stronger than steel. No wonder you campaigned in such a whopper.”

“I’m not out there fun-fishing to catch and release, like you timid old-timers and castrated ecology boys.”

The chained marlin reaches the top of the scale. A white arrow spins in a circle around painted numbers and stops on the weight of the marlin. The fishermen all exhale in surprise. Big moans with disappointment.

The craggy old fisherman turns to Big. “Missed the record by only twelve pounds. Rare to catch ’em that big here—they’ve been fished out. Offshore of Cuba, yeah, maybe you can still reel in a whopper like this, but not around Key West. You should mount it, display it in the hotel lobby of your new Neptune Bay Resort.”

Big stares at the marlin swaying on the pulley chain. He pulls off his cap and runs his hand over his head, slicking back his dyed blond hair. He claps the cap back on his head. “I only mount record breakers. I’ll have her chopped up so nobody else can claim her.”

The old fisherman shakes his head in dismay. “Shame to do that. She’s a seven-hundred-pound beauty. You should have released her if you weren’t going to keep her. That would’ve been the sporting thing to do.”

“Don’t talk to me about sport, old man. It’s not about sport. It’s about winning.”

The old fisherman fixes his crinkly gaze on Big. “I been around a long time. I seen things. That fish is bigger than the record breaker Hemingway caught between Key West and Cuba back in the 1930s. Crime to chop her up. Any guy standing here will give you ten grand so’s he can trophy-mount her and call her his own.”

“I’ll chop her up personally. She’ll be expensive sushi for the alley cats tonight.” Big’s broad tanned face breaks into a smile at the old fisherman. “And I don’t give a f*ck about a fat, bearded dead writer who once caught a big fish in these waters.”



Luz makes her way into the Police Chief’s crowded office. The Chief, Moxel, and a team of white-suited forensic investigators are huddled intensely over a black micro–digital recorder on the Chief’s desk. The Chief speaks with urgent anticipation. “Just got this—copy of the recording sewn into Hard Puppy’s mouth. Could be our big breakthrough.”

Luz hunches toward the recorder with the others. The Chief presses the recorder’s play button. The recorder’s red indicator light flashes. The small speaker crackles with static and the eerie chant of an electronically altered voice.

“Bizango … Bizango … Bizango

Bizango … Bizango … Bizango

Bizango … Bizango … Bizango.”

The recorded voice stops. A low-frequency electronic hissing is heard. The recorder’s flashing red light dims and goes out. No one around the desk moves; they all barely breathe, waiting for the recorder’s dead light to flash back to life.

The Chief slams his fist on the desk, jolting everyone. “That’s him, mocking us! Bizango won’t communicate anymore!” He turns in frustration on the forensic investigators. “What have you got from Blue Hole?”

One of them shakes his head negatively. “Not even a footprint in the mud was left. Whatever prints had been there were compromised by those damn gators mucking around.”

“What about prints on the forest trail? What about prints on the spear shot into the tree? What about prints on Hard Puppy’s mutilated head? Must be something?”

“Nothing. It’s like he’s a ghost, or clever enough to know the tricks to stay invisible. We’re still waiting for more results from our lab up in Miami. They’re close to getting the true voice-sound identity of whoever is speaking on the recordings.”

“The Blue Hole gators? You autopsied them?”

“Killed them and ran tests on everything in their digestive tracts and the feces in their bowels. Everything was what you’d expect.”

“Yeah, what?”

“Half-eaten fish, frogs, and human remains. DNA testing shows that the human remains are from one person, Hard Puppy.”

The Chief glares at the investigator. “I could’ve told you that. We don’t need DNA mumbo-jumbo to know those gators ate Hard. You guys are way above my pay grade and supposed to be brilliant, but you can’t figure out how one guy in a rubber suit is getting away with multiple murders.” The Chief fires a commanding look across the desk at Luz. “Don’t just stand there staring at me with those big brown eyes. What do you have for me?”

“Well, give me a chance to get it out. I traced all the calls made to Noah’s radio show. None turned up anyone who can be considered a suspect. The only two callers I couldn’t get a location fix on were Bizango and that Nam vet who keeps talking about Permian extinction. They both were using different public phone booths. I questioned the people at businesses around those booths, but nobody remembers seeing anything unusual. I had Forensics scour the booths for prints. I ran the prints through our database, the FBI’s database, even Homeland Security’s database. So far, nothing incriminating.”

“That Nam vet, he’s got me worried. You scare up anything, anything at all?”

“I tried everywhere, even went around to the veterans’ bars. Problem is, most guys hanging in those places are so baked on meds they’re no longer tightly wrapped. They sent me on wild-goose chases. I never found the radio vet.”

“What about Noah? You keeping him pointed in the right direction?”

“He knows what to do. He’s throwing out more red meat to provoke Bizango into calling. The moment Bizango calls, we’re on him if we get the GPS location of where he’s phoning from. Noah knows the stakes.”

“When’s his next broadcast?”

“About an hour.”

“Good. I’ll have the SWAT team ready to roll.” The Chief looks around at everyone in the crowded room. “I want you all to stay on the razor’s edge—stay on that edge until your feet bleed. We’re gonna get this guy now.”



Truth Dog back on the air. Let me hit you with a pressure drop of info. One-quarter of all mammals and one-third of all amphibians are headed for extinction on this fouled-up planet in ten years. That’s a fact. Right here in Florida, we lose thousands of acres a day to development. Half of the Everglades have already been drained and bulldozed, devoured by greed. Check it out. Okay, I see I’ve got a brave pilgrim calling in. Show me the rage.”

“I’m a young mother of three kids; I’ve got bigger problems than saving mammals and amphibians. I’m terrified about this Bizango character. He’s going to be at the Fantasy Parade. I don’t care what the cops say about how safe it is to be out, something horrible is going to happen. People I know are scared to death. They’re staying home. They aren’t going to the Fantasy Parade.”

“Not everyone is afraid. The tourist bureau expects eighty thousand thrill-seekers showing up for our annual party. Anything goes at the Fantasy Parade—the shocking, the vulgar, the perverted. If the threat of a category-three hurricane couldn’t keep the merrymakers away from the parade some years back, what makes you think they’ll be afraid of our own homegrown Jack the Ripper stalking them in the streets? Just gives Fantasy Parade an air of spooky realism.”

“You’re making me more frightened with talk like that. I’m hanging up.”

“Wait! You’ve got to understand, a guy like Bizango, he has his thoughts banging and boiling in his head. He believes in his righteous crusade. He believes the voices that only he hears come from God’s lips to his ears. The problem is, the truly evil ones who walk among us in this world don’t show that they are evil—that’s why they are so lethal. They hide in the shadows of anonymity, hunker down in the crevices of their cowardice, waiting to strike.”

“Now I’m really terrified.”

“I’m trying to help you get a philosophical grip on reality. And, uh, one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“What are your kids going to dress up as this Halloween?”

“That’s the last thing on my mind. I’m not letting them out of the house.”

“I’ve got what they should be.”

“What?”

“Skeletons.”

“That’s not funny! You sicko!”

“Whoops, she’s gone. We need a good jolt of gallows humor when there’s a killer out there wanting us to jump through our a*sholes with fear. Hey, pilgrims, you’ve stopped calling. Maybe nobody is awake. Nobody except Bizango. I know you’re out there, Bizango. I challenge you to crawl out from your cowardly crevice. Put your serpent lips to the phone and kiss me with your hate.”



At the Atlantic Ocean’s edge, Luz sits in her parked Charger in front of the monument marking SOUTHERNMOST POINT CONTINENTAL U.S.A. On the ocean’s distant horizon, toward Cuba, black clouds obliterate the stars. Jagged bolts of lightning stab down from the clouds; the flashes appear to be a fearsome army of bright giants marching in. Luz looks through the car’s windshield at the lightning as she listens to Noah’s broadcast.

“I’ve got a call! Hello, who is this? Answer me! Don’t hang up! Why did you hang up? Call me back. I’m waiting. Punch me with your pain.”

Luz turns the radio volume up and listens closely as a new call comes in to Noah.

“Hola, Truth Dog, brave crusader. This is the Nam vet.”

“Welcome back to the show, Permian-theory man. Extinction is your karma. Let’s talk about it. It’s now or never.”

“Do you know how many oil wells are in the Gulf of Mexico?”

“I used to be an environmental attorney fighting to keep corporate-oil bloodsuckers from drilling in the Gulf, so I know the answer to that. There are four thousand offshore oil and gas rigs out there. The disastrous Deepwater Horizon blowout caused millions of gallons of oil to flow into the pristine Gulf. The toxic dispersants used to break up the oil and hide the crime created a hypoxic dead zone in the Gulf bigger than the state of New Jersey, a floating black hole of death where nothing lives, grows, moves, or swims.”

“You’ve got facts.”

“Hell yeah, I’ve got facts. One of our planet’s great fisheries is becoming a gigantic dead pond. And people ask why I’m so pissed off!”

“That’s right, but I’ve got even bigger rage! Homo sapiens are invasive predators who are goin’ to blow sky-high in a second Permian Extinction Event. Won’t even be enough time to load your Noah’s Lark with a few animals. It’s the Gulf of Mexico oil drillin’ that’s goin’ to bring it on. The corporations are crackin’ open the ocean’s floor, tappin’ into a mega-vault of methane gas. Those four thousand oil and gas rigs in the Gulf you mentioned are goin’ to detonate at the same time, creatin’ a force greater than pullin’ the trigger on every stockpiled atomic weapon. And you mumble, don’t fool with Mother Nature or Mother Nature will fool with you. I’m sayin’, man has f*cked Nature, so Nature’s goin’ to obliterate man. The mother of all explosions is comin’!”

Luz’s cell phone beeps loudly in her shirt pocket. She grabs the phone and holds it to her ear.

The Chief’s voice shouts over the phone, “You hear what the Nam vet is saying?”

“I’m listening.”

“He’s our guy.”

“That’s not the Bizango voice we heard on the recordings. He’s a different guy.”

“No. It’s Bizango. He’s trying to head-fake us.”

“Quick, give me a GPS if you’ve got it.”

“Just a sec, something’s coming in. He’s using a landline this time. We’re tracking … getting a location. Here it comes.… One-four-five Hurricane Court.”

Luz throws the cell phone down on the car seat, jams her foot on the accelerator, and roars the Charger away from the southernmost continental point. She speeds up Whitehead Street toward the lighthouse towering above the palm trees. She passes the long brick wall in front of the two-story Hemingway House, where tourists are lined up taking photographs. She wheels the car around a corner and comes to a stop in Hurricane Court with its circle of ramshackle houses. She jumps from her car and looks around. No other police are there. She sees across a dead lawn a shabby house with windows blacked out by inside blinds. The number on the house’s paint-peeling front door is 145.

A police car pulls up to a stop, and Moxel gets out. “Hold up a minute, Luz.” He nods toward the house with the blacked-out windows. “That guy in there is a psycho killer. The SWAT team is on their way. Let’s wait.”

“I’m not waiting.” Luz pulls her Glock out of its holster. “Back me up. I’m going in.”

“That’s crazy. The guy’s a Nam vet. He could have the place booby-trapped to explode. He was trained to do that shit.”

Luz ignores Moxel and runs across the dead lawn to the front door. She grabs the door handle; it is locked. She stands back, gripping her pistol tightly in both hands. She kicks the door, banging it open. She bursts inside a living room darkened by closed blinds covering the windows. She whips her pistol around in every direction, her head snapping from side to side, ready for someone to jump up from behind the shadows of cluttered furniture. She steps cautiously across the room toward a splinter of light creeping along the bottom of a closed door. She stops at the door and listens for sounds on the other side. She hears nothing. She places her hand on the handle and twists it quietly to an open position. She throws the door back, and a sudden burst of light from a brightly lit room illuminates her completely.

Facing Luz on the far side of the room is a man in his sixties, his fierce face etched with a spider web of wrinkles, his large wedge-shaped head shaved; a thick gray walrus mustache hangs over his top lip and down the sides of his mouth. He sits at stiff-backed attention in a battered aluminum wheelchair with worn duct tape wrapped tightly on its two arched handles. A coarse green military blanket covers the man from the waist down. On the wall behind hangs a Vietnam-era Missing in Action flag with the silhouette of a soldier’s head bent forlornly in front of a prison guard-tower. The flag’s logo declares, in blood-red letters, POW-MIA, YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN.

The man stares pointedly at Luz as if he has been expecting her. His words rush out. “Welcome to the Casbah!”

“Police! Raise your hands and put them behind your head!”

The man’s hands move quickly toward the blanket covering him below the waist.

Luz grips her pistol harder and splays her legs apart into a firing stance. “One more move toward that blanket and I’ll blow you to hell. Hands up!”

Moxel bursts in behind Luz, his gun out. He looks at the man in the wheelchair and whoops. “We got Bizango! Keep him covered! I’m cuffing him!” The man’s hands move toward the top of the blanket. Moxel shouts at Luz, “There’s a gun under the blanket! I can see its bulge! Shoot him if he moves!”

Luz steps closer to the man, her pistol held in firing position at his head.

Moxel grabs the edge of the man’s blanket. “I’ve got your Bizango ass now!” He rips the blanket away from the man’s lap and looks down.

Aimed straight at Moxel are two blunt fleshy stumps of the man’s legs, amputated above his knees. He throws his head back and laughs. “You thought I was Bizango! Fools! Everyone with a brain and heart is Bizango now, even those of us who can only dream of what he does! Bizango said to boogie till you bounce, bop till you drop. I boogied in Nam. The parachute didn’t open fully when I jumped out of a plane and bopped down; I bounced. Lost my legs. And this country doesn’t give a shit now. I’m forgotten history, political roadkill. Just like that Vietnam girl runnin’ down the road with napalm burnin’ her skin off. Just like that pathetic pelican covered in oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout, its wings spread out, tryin’ to fly. I’ll never be airborne again.”

Behind Luz, a stomping commotion breaks out. She swings around as a SWAT team storms in from the hallway. The muscular men are protected by heavy body armor; antiballistic helmets are clamped tight over their heads; strapped around their waists are belts of bullets and grenades. Gripped in their gloved hands are submachine guns. They aim at the legless vet in the wheelchair.

The vet raises his arms and flaps them in the air. His mocking voice shouts at the armored men: “I’ll never be airborne again! You gonna napalm me too? You gonna drown me in oil? Bring it on! I’m ready to rock and roll! You chickenshit killers! You won’t get him, you know! Bizango is too smart for you! You dumb bastards only know how to kill. Bizango knows who to kill!”