Perrier-Jouet rested in an ice bucket. Nicky gestured to an adjoining chair. “Welcome to my humble home-away- from-home.”
“Not so humble,” I said, easing into the rocker. The chair was carved from reddish-brown mahogany, with a firm, close grain. The armrests were graceful curves, the legs beveled and smoothly finished. “Not what I pictured when you told me a fishing cabin.” Below us, perched on a fallen branch, a roseate spoonbill fluttered its pink wings and swung its flat bill side to side, sifting through the water. “How’d you ever get the permits to clear the hammock and build in the water?”
“Permits?” The word seemed amusing to him, like “platypus” to a comedian. “This is Injun country, Jake. Seventy thousand acres, and the state and federal government got no rights out here. No Army Corps of Engineers, no Environmental Protection Agency, no Department of Natural Resources. Not even a building inspector to bribe with a case of scotch. You get it, Jake? To a builder, this is heaven on earth.”
Nicky laughed, pleased with himself. Another dark-complexioned man in an Indian jacket appeared from the house. He was carrying a tray that held a chilled mug and a bottle of Grolsch. “You’re welcome to the champagne,” Nicky offered, “but my sources tell me beer’s your drink.”
His sources were right.
In a moment, the same man reappeared carrying a spinning rod.
He handed it to me, then disappeared around the side of the porch.
“What, no one to bait my hook? What kind of host are you?”
Florio used his foot to shove a bucket toward me. I took a look inside, expecting to see shiners or night crawlers, not live finger mullet. “Thought we were fishing for black bass.”
“You kidding? Bass in the Glades been showing up with mercury. Tupton was right, you know. Goddamn garbage plants ruining the environment.”
“Tupton was right?” I asked. I was glad he brought up the name. It saved me the trouble.
“He was right about a lot of things. The phosphorous runoff from the farmlands, the pollution from the sugarcane fields, the scarring of the flats with off-road vehicles.”
I put a mullet on the hook and dropped my line into the water. “Right about everything except your projects.”
“Let’s say he was overzealous when it came to Florio Enterprises. I tried to talk sense to the bastard. I told him we could be allies, I’d fund his favorite causes. Keep the poachers and the three-wheelers out of the Glades.”
“The penny-ante stuff. Meanwhile, developers like you and Gondolier dredge waterways, drain swamps, pave over wetlands, and plan the biggest project the Glades have seen since Tamiami Trail was built sixty years ago.”
He kept his eyes on the water. “Believe me, what we’re going to do will make the Trail seem like…”
“A two-lane road,” I said.
“Exactly.”
Below us, the snouts and humped backs of two manatees appeared above the waterline. Gentle homely mammals related to elephants, this pair probably ran close to a thousand pounds each. I watched the manatees without saying a word, still trying to figure out how to move the conversation in the right direction. Finally, I decided to wade into the murky water. “What’d Tupton find in your den?” I asked.
Florio didn’t blink. “You heard Gondo. The golf course plans.”
“Bullshit. Where was Peter Tupton between six and nine o’clock? He sure wasn’t in the wine cellar, or he would have been found.”
“I give up. You tell me, Counselor.”
I let my line drift with the current. Fishing wasn’t my highest priority just now. “Tupton was with you, probably in the den. Maybe Gondolier was there, too. The two of you were trying to bargain with him, but he wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t take your bribes or your grants, or whatever you called them. But he’d drink your champagne, even though he couldn’t hold it. He passed out, and you carried him into the wine cellar. Maybe you just wanted time to talk it over with Gondolier. Maybe you even made a little joke. ‘Let’s put the bastard on ice for a while.’ Later, the bastard is dead.”
Florio growled and reeled in his line. His bait was gone. “Wild talk like that could upset people.”
“People?”
“Gondolier isn’t as fond of you as I am. Of course, he doesn’t have the common bond we share, right, Jake?”
For a second, I didn’t know what he meant.
Then I did.
“Or does he, Jake? Maybe we both should be pissed at that grease-ball ladies’ man.”
I tried to look confused. It isn’t hard for me. Florio seemed to buy it. He dipped his hand into the bucket of mullet and brought out some fresh bait. “I hired you because of Gina. She’d be very unhappy to hear that you were causing trouble, making crazy accusations you couldn’t prove.”
“Even if I could prove every word, I wouldn’t. I can’t use something I learned while representing you in a way that would harm you.”
“Ethics, Jake?”
“That’s right.”
“Just like with Guillermo Diaz?”
Below us, two pink flamingos were flapping their wings and long-legging it across the top of the water. They came to a stop, folded their legs underneath their bodies, and floated close to some swamp lilies. “Diaz was threatening to kill someone. I thought I could stop him.”
“You found a loophole, right? A technicality. You guys who deal in words, you so-called professionals got an excuse for everything. You understand words but not bricks and mortar. Guys like you and Tupton don’t build anything. You stop people from building.”
Tupton and me, I thought. A couple of guys who get in the way. And only one of us dead.
“Progress, Jake. People need homes. Florida’s growing like a son of a bitch. We’re the fourth-largest state now. A thousand people a week move here. Do you know what that means to somebody in my business?”
“Heaven on earth,” I said.
“You got it.” His laugh was like a dog’s bark.
Below us, on the muddy bank, one of the alligators, a nine-foot bull, slipped quietly into the water and disappeared under the surface. “It’s a damn shame,” Florio said, “but people get a distorted view of builders from the news media and zealots like Tupton. We’re not predators.” With the tip of his rod, Florio pointed toward the sky where six white birds flew in formation. “The snowy egret. Nearly became extinct because women wanted feathers in their hats a hundred years ago. What kind of bullshit is that? I’m as sensitive to the environment as the next guy, but I’m here to deliver what the country needs and wants.”
“Who decides what the country needs and wants? You?”
“No, the consumer decides. I just fill the need, me and guys just like me. Businessmen. Who’d you rather have doing it? Congress, state agencies, local mayors?” He looked back toward the sky, but the birds were gone. “You think developers are money-hungry sleazebags, don’t you, Jake?”
“Well put,” I agreed.
“Then wake up and smell the money, friend. Who’s been convicted lately? The mayors of Miami Beach and Hialeah, commissioners in Sweetwater, city and county cops, bankers and lawyers and judges you probably have lunch with. Bribery and extortion and what have you. It’s all a game. Money and power. Whoever’s got the biggest dick wins. It’s all around us, Jake. It’s the way of doing business down here. Always has been and always will be.”
All the talk of criminals reminded me of somebody. “I was surprised to see Diaz working for Gondolier,” I said.
“For Gondolier? Diaz works for me. Everybody works for me, including that pretty boy Gondolier, though he tends to forget it.”
The manatees cruised back under the house, and Florio dragged his line away from them. Like a lot of people, I figured, he didn’t want to hurt a living creature he could see up close.
“You think it matters to me that you fucked over Diaz?” Florio said. “I couldn’t care less. If anything, it just
