to believe.”
“You’re a smooth one,” Beak heard on his headset. “Do you have plans for dinner?”
They wound up at a barbecue joint where alligator croquetas were on the menu and derisively avoided by the locals. Beak had a plate of pulled pork while Angie ordered a rack of ribs and a stuffed potato. For a small woman she seemed to have a big appetite. When she asked if he’d ever taken LSD, he thought she was joking.
“I’m such a lightweight,” she murmured before chugging a jumbo tumbler of unsweetened iced tea.
Beak said, “I got some excellent bud at home.”
“Let’s get a drink instead.”
They found a decent bar, where he held her hand and listened to a thumbnail version of her life story. He said he couldn’t picture her locked in a prison cell. He liked how she’d rigged her pickup truck, and he had lots of questions about the wildlife-relocation business. He was surprised that it didn’t pay better.
“Was that tree island trip one of your jobs?” he asked.
Angie answered no, it was personal business.
“Was anyone else out there?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.
“But what about that johnboat hidden in the grass?”
“Who knows. Maybe a poacher?”
“Yeah, probably,” said Beak.
They went back to his doublewide, Angie following in her truck. She fell asleep while he was in the shower, and he had no luck trying to wake her. In the morning she apologized, combed out her hair, and made pancakes.
“Are you booked today?” she asked him.
“Nope. Wish I was.”
“You are now,” she said. “I need to go back to that island. I’ll give you five hundred bucks.”
So Beak took her back, and this time Angie told him to wait at the shore. She was gone only a few minutes, and she seemed upset when she returned.
“What’s wrong? What happened back there?” he asked.
“Forget it. Let’s get the hell out.”
Beak said, “No, I’m gonna go look for myself.”
“You are not,” she snapped. “There’s nothing to see.”
Which was the wild and dumbfounding truth.
TWENTY-THREE
Fay Alex Riptoad gathered the Potussies at the club library in order to quell an uprising about the Commander’s Ball. The Italian gown designer most worshipped by the group had fallen behind in his work and assigned a straight young assistant to finish the patriotically themed dresses of Dorothea Mars Bristol, Yirma Skyy Frick, and Kelly Bean Drummond, all of whom were outraged by what they perceived was second-tier attention. Since there wasn’t enough time to start from scratch with another designer, the three demoted Potussies insisted that—to level the social playing field—every member of the group should come to the ball in a previously worn gown.
That radical proposal was jeered by Dee Wyndham Wittlefield and Deirdre Cobo Lancôme, both of whom were already drunk and feisty. Fay Alex Riptoad cast her vote with the tipsy traditionalists, asserting that the President and First Lady would surely notice—and be offended—if the women didn’t show up wearing something new and spectacular. Fay Alex cited her own chiffon Statue-of-Liberty ensemble from the previous year’s gala as particularly unforgettable—the toga-like gown fitted daringly to bare a shoulder, and hemmed precisely to ankle-length so as not to conceal Fay Alex’s one-of-a-kind, tri-colored Louboutin slingbacks. The outfit was so distinct that it couldn’t possibly be recycled, even for the cause of friendship.
Dottie Mars, Yirma, and Kelly Bean were so incensed that they vowed to boycott the ball, a threat Fay Alex didn’t take seriously. The group was to be seated at the same table as the executive producer of Fox & Friends who was bringing as a guest his sleep-disorder therapist, wealthy and single. Since Dottie Mars was the one who’d gifted the tickets, there was no chance of her staying home. Still, seeking to mollify the mutineers, Fay Alex announced that anyone who was dissatisfied with the dress from the apprentice designer could seek reimbursement from the fashion slush fund controlled by the President’s eldest daughter, a size 8 with exquisite taste.
Once the matter was put to rest, Fay Alex offered to treat the group to a conciliatory brunch. The Potussies collected their respective Secret Service agents, who were posted outside the library, and headed for the Sabal Palm Room, a members-only lounge overlooking a garden of fiberglass bamboo. Along the way they passed the First Lady with her own Secret Service entourage, led by her tall, dark, alleged lover and an attractive female agent that Fay Alex remembered seeing occasionally on the grounds of Casa Bellicosa.
The President’s wife, wearing a long-sleeved tee and slate-gray