Squeeze Me - Carl Hiaasen Page 0,4

a/c. Some of these homeowners’ associations, they’re so cheap they make the guards roast in the heat.”

“I can’t let you in. That’s how the dude before me got fired.”

“Understood. So, if Mr. Fleck calls up asking where I am, please tell him you did your job and turned me away.” Angie put the truck in reverse. “Also, tell him good luck with that raccoon.”

As Angie backed up, the stoner guard scrambled out of the booth waving at her: “Yo, ma’am, wait! I didn’t know that’s why you were here.”

She poked her head out the truck. “The noose wasn’t a clue?”

“The Flecks are in Building D, number 158.” He raised the gate and motioned for the specialist to drive through.

“Rock on,” Angie said as she drove past.

Jonathan Fleck was pacing the sidewalk in front of the townhouse. His wife and kids had barricaded themselves in an upstairs bedroom while the wild raccoon ransacked the kitchen.

“It must’ve broke in through the back door,” Fleck said as he led Angie inside.

The living room was neat and newly renovated. White walls and pale furniture made it feel less cramped. Fleck was dressed up for a legit job—navy slacks, white shirt, club necktie. Obviously the guy worked Saturdays, so Angie figured he must be in sales—new cars maybe, or household audio components.

Fleck took out a handgun, which he passed to Angie saying, “I couldn’t do the deed myself. Truth is I’ve never fired this thing.”

It was a Glock nine, of course, the favored armament of modern white suburbanites. Angie made sure the safety was on before placing the weapon on a hallway table. She went back to her truck, rigged the capture noose and put on some long canvas gloves.

“Can I watch?” Fleck asked.

“No, sir. You get hurt, I lose my insurance.”

“All right. But at least can I ask how much is this gonna cost?”

“Four hundred dollars,” Angie replied.

“You’re shitting me.”

“Five-fifty, if it’s a female with little ones.”

“Unbelievable,” Fleck muttered. “You take plastic?”

“Effortlessly.”

The pudgy raccoon sat splay-legged on its haunches, finishing a Triscuit. It growled at Angie while nimbly plucking another cracker from the box. The animal’s furry dome of a tummy was evidence of a prolonged feast. The kitchen was a wreck—the cabinet doors had been flung open, the countertops strewn with rice, raisins, dry macaroni, granola, flour, pistachios and Lucky Charms. A half-eaten blueberry Pop-Tart extruded from a toaster that the raccoon had unplugged and dragged to the floor.

Angie noticed the animal eyeing her long-handled noose.

“Sorry, compadre,” she said, “but we gotta take a ride.”

From the hallway came a voice: “Don’t you need to shoot it so they can test for rabies?”

“It’s not rabid, sir. Just cheeky.”

Behind Angie, the swinging kitchen door moved. It was Fleck, holding the damn Glock again.

He whispered, “I thought you could use some backup.”

“Back your ass up those stairs,” Angie told him, “and wait with your family.”

Transferring the raccoon to the truck was, as usual, a clamorous enterprise. Plenty of bare-fanged snapping and writhing—Angie’s trousers saved her shins from being shredded. Afterward the Fleck children emerged with upraised phones to snap photos of the sulking intruder inside the transport kennel.

Angie shook off her gloves and processed Fleck’s AmEx with her mobile card reader, which rejected it on three attempts.

“Your chip slot isn’t working,” Fleck protested.

“It works fine,” said Angie.

“Then there’s some sort of screwup by American Express.” Fleck was striving to appear more irritated than embarrassed. “I’m afraid I don’t have four hundred in cash on me. Will you take a personal check?”

“Don’t even go there.”

“So…what happens if I can’t pay you right now?”

“What happens is I re-deposit this unruly creature in your domicile.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“No, Señor Fuckwhistle, I am not.”

“I went from ‘sir’ to ‘Señor Fuckwhistle?’ ”

Angie put on her gloves again. “I didn’t come here to get stiffed. This bad boy’s going straight back to the kitchen.”

Fleck bolted inside to fetch his wife’s MasterCard, which sailed through Angie’s reader on the first try. Angie promised to email a receipt.

After departing Otter Falls, she drove all the way to the Seminole reservation at Big Cypress. There were closer places to have staged the release, but she enjoyed the long ride across the blond saw grass marsh. It was a rare stretch of South Florida interstate with a view that wasn’t savagely depressing.

Angie took the Snake Road exit and continued north to an area with lots of tall timber and relatively few hunters. When she reached down to unlatch the door of the carry kennel, the raccoon