Carl Hiaasen - Skin Tight

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Table of Contents

PRAISE FOR

CARL HIAASEN

One of Americas finest novelists.

Pete Hamill

Hiaasen isnt just Floridas sharpest satiristhes one of the few funny writers left in the whole country... I think of him as a national treasure [and] I have yet to be disappointed.... Hiaasen is not just a good comic writer. Hes just a good writer.

Newsweek

Hiaasen [is] king of the screwball comedies... a truly original comic novelist.

Rocky Mountain News

Hiaasen is always good for a number of laugh-aloud scenes and lines... His ear is pitch-perfect.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Hiaasens campfire voice, perpetually amused by the resourcefulness with which his characters reaffirm his opinion of human nature, provides a core of truthiness.

The New York Times Book Review

When hes in good form, Hiaasen, like Elmore Leonard, shouldnt be missed.

San Francisco Chronicle

A lifelong resident of the Sunshine State, [Hiaasens] novels have always addressed the states ecological and social ills with scathing satire, ironic comeuppance, and an ever-evolving sensibility.

Time Out New York

He writes with an old-time columnists sense of righteous rage and an utterly current and biting wit.

Publishers Weekly

A bird so rarethe humorous popular novelist with an acutely critical social perspectivethat hes practically an endangered species.

Kirkus Reviews

Also by Carl Hiaasen

NATURE GIRL
SKINNY DIP
BASKET CASE
SICK PUPPY
LUCKY YOU
STORMY WEATHER
STRIP TEASE
NATIVE TONGUE
DOUBLE WHAMMY
TOURIST SEASON

A DEATH IN CHINA
(with William Montalbano)

TRAP LINE
(with William Montalbano)

POWDER BURN
(with William Montalbano)

For Young Readers

SCAT
FLUSH
HOOT

Nonfiction

THE DOWNHILL LIE:
A HACKERS RETURN TO A RUINOUS SPORT

TEAM RODENT:
HOW DISNEY DEVOURS THE WORLD

KICK ASS: SELECTED COLUMNS
(edited by Diane Stevenson)

PARADISE SCREWED: SELECTED COLUMNS
(edited by Diane Stevenson)

CHAPTER 1

ON the third of January, a leaden, blustery day, two tourists from Covington, Tennessee, removed their sensible shoes to go strolling on the beach at Key Biscayne.

When they got to the old Cape Florida lighthouse, the young man and his fiance sat down on the damp sand to watch the ocean crash hard across the brown boulders at the point of the island. There was a salt haze in the air, and it stung the young mans eyes so that when he spotted the thing floating, it took several moments to focus on what it was.

Its a big dead fish, his fiance said. Maybe a porpoise.

I dont believe so, said the young man. He stood up, dusted off the seat of his trousers, and walked to the edge of the surf. As the thing floated closer, the young man began to wonder about his legal responsibilities, providing it turned out to be what he thought it was. Oh yes, he had heard about Miami; this sort of stuff happened every day.

Lets go back now, he said abruptly to his fiance.

No, I want to see what it is. It doesnt look like a fish anymore.

The young man scanned the beach and saw they were all alone, thanks to the lousy weather. He also knew from a brochure back at the hotel that the lighthouse was long ago abandoned, so there would be no one watching from above.

Its a dead body, he said grimly to his fiance.

Come off it.

At that instant a big, lisping breaker took the thing on its crest and carried it all the way to the beach, where it stuckthe nose of the dead man grounding as a keel in the sand.

The young mans fiance stared down at the corpse and said, Geez, youre right.

The young man sucked in his breath and took a step back.

Should we turn it over? his fiancee asked. Maybe hes still alive.

Dont touch it. Hes dead.

How do you know?

The young man pointed with a bare toe. See that hole?

Thats a hole?

She bent over and studied a stain on the shirt. The stain was the color of rust and the size of a sand dollar.

Well, he didnt just drown, the young man announced.

His fiance shivered a little and buttoned her sweater. So what do we do now?

Now we get out of here.

Shouldnt we call the police?

Its our vacation, Cheryl. Besides, were a half-hours walk to the nearest phone.

The young man was getting nervous; he thought he heard a boats engine somewhere around the point of the island, on the bay side.

The woman tourist said, Just a second. She unsnapped the black leather case that held her trusty Canon Sure-Shot.

What are you doing?

I want a picture, Thomas. She already had the camera up to her eye.

Are you crazy?

Otherwise no one back home will believe us. I mean, we come all the way down to Miami and what happens? Remember how your brother was making murder jokes before we left? Its unreal. Stand to the right a little, Thomas, and pretend to look down at it.

Pretend, hell.

Come on, one picture.

No, the man said, eyeing the corpse.

Please? You used up a whole roll on Flipper.

The woman snapped the picture and said, Thats good. Now you take one of me.

Well, hurry it up, the young man grumped. The wind was blowing harder from the northeast, moaning through the whippy Australian pines behind them. The sound of the boat engine, wherever it was, had faded away.

The young mans fiance struck a pose next to the dead body: She pointed at it and made a sour face, crinkling her zinc-coated nose.

I cant believe this, the young man said, lining up the photograph.

Me neither, Thomas. A real live dead bodyjust like on the TV show. Yuk!

Yeah, yuk, said the young man. Fucking yuk is right.

THE day had begun with only a light, cool breeze and a rim of broken raspberry clouds out toward the Bahamas. Stranahan was up early, frying eggs and chasing the gulls off the roof. He lived in an old stilt house on the shallow tidal flats of Biscayne Bay, a mile from the tip of Cape Florida. The house had a small generator powered by a four-bladed windmill, but no air-conditioning. Except for a few days in August and September, there was always a decent breeze. That was one nice thing about living on the water.

There were maybe a dozen other houses in the stretch of Biscayne Bay known as Stiltsville, but none were inhabited; rich owners used them for weekend parties, and their kids got drunk on them in the summer. The rest of the time they served as fancy, split-level toilets for seagulls and cormorants.

Stranahan had purchased his house dirt-cheap at a government auction. The previous owner was a Venezuelan cocaine courier who had been shot thirteen times in a serious business dispute, then indicted posthumously. No sooner had the corpse been air-freighted back to Caracas than Customs agents seized the stilt house, along with three condos, two Porsches, a one-eyed scarlet macaw, and a yacht with a hot tub. The hot tub was where the Venezuelan had met his spectacular death, so bidding was feverish. Likewise the macawa material witness to its owners murderfetched top dollar; before the auction, mischievous Customs agents had taught the bird to say, Duck, you shithead!

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