Carl Hiaasen - Star Island

ALSO BY CARL HIAASEN

Fiction

Nature Girl
Skinny Dip
Basket Case
Sick Puppy
Lucky You
Stormy Weather
Strip Tease
Native Tongue
Skin Tight
Double Whammy
Tourist Season

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)

For Sonny Mehta,
a great editor and friend

On the fifteenth of March, two hours before sunrise, an emergency medical technician named Jimmy Campo found a sweaty stranger huddled in the back of his ambulance. It was parked in a service alley behind the Stefano Hotel, where Jimmy Campo and his partner had been summoned to treat a twenty-two-year-old white female who had swallowed an unwise mix of vodka, Red Bull, hydrocodone, birdseed and stool softenerin all respects a routine South Beach 911 call, until now.

The stranger in Jimmy Campos ambulance had two 35-mm digital cameras hanging from his fleshy neck, and a bulky gear bag balanced on his ample lap. He wore a Dodgers cap and a Bluetooth ear set. His ripe, florid cheeks glistened damply, and his body reeked like a prison laundry bag.

Get out of my ambulance, Jimmy Campo said.

Is she dead? the man asked excitedly.

Dude, Im callin the cops if you dont move it.

Whos with her up thereColin? Shia?

The stranger outweighed Jimmy Campo by sixty-five pounds but not an ounce of it was muscle. Jimmy Campo, whod once been a triathlete, dragged the intruder from the vehicle and deposited him on the sticky pavement beneath a streetlight.

Chill, for Christs sake, the man said, examining his camera equipment for possible damage. Stray cats tangled and yowled somewhere in the shadows.

Inside the ambulance, Jimmy Campo found what he was looking for: a sealed sterile packet containing a coiled intravenous rig to replace the one that the female overdose victim had ripped from her right arm while she was thrashing on the floor.

The stranger struggled to his feet and said, Ill give you a thousand bucks.

For what?

When you bring her downstairs, lemme take a picture. The man dug into the folds of his stale trousers and produced a lump of cash. You gotta job to do, and so do I. Heres a grand.

Jimmy Campo looked at the money in the strangers hand. Then he glanced up at the third floor of the hotel, where his partner was almost certainly dodging vomit.

Is she famous or somethin? Jimmy Campo asked.

The photographer chuckled. Man, you dont even know?

Jimmy Campo was thinking about the fifty-two-inch high-def that hed seen on sale at Brands Mart. He was thinking about his girlfriend on a rampage with his maxed-out MasterCard at the Dadeland Mall. He was thinking about all those nasty letters from his credit union.

Whoever she is, shes not dead, he told the photographer. Not tonight.

Cool. The man continued to hold out the wad of hundreds in the glow of the streetlight, as if teasing a mutt with raw hamburger. He said, All you gotta do, before loading her in the wagon, just pull down the covers and step away so I can get my shot. Five seconds is all I need.

It wont be pretty. Shes a sick young lady. Jimmy Campo took the crumpled money and smoothed it into his wallet.

Is she awake at least? the photographer asked.

On and off.

But you could see her eyes in a picture, right? Shes got those awesome sea-green eyes.

Jimmy Campo said, I didnt notice.

You really dont know who she is? Seriously?

Who do you work for, anyway?

A limited partnership, the man said. Me, myself and I.

And where can I see this great picture youre gonna take?

Everywhere. Youll see it everywhere, the stranger said.

Eighteen minutes later, Jimmy Campo and his partner emerged from the Stefano Hotel guiding a collapsible stretcher upon which lay a slender, motionless form.

The photographer was surprised at the absence of a retinue; no bodyguards or boyfriends or hangers-on. A lone Miami Beach police officer followed the stretcher down the alley. When the photographer began snapping pictures, the cop barely reacted, making no effort to shield the stricken woman from the flash bursts. That should have been a clue.

Sliding closer, the paparazzo intercepted the stretcher as it rolled with an oscillating squeak toward the open end of the ambulance. True to his word, Jimmy Campo tugged down the sheet and stepped away, leaving an opening.

Cherry! the photographer shouted at the slack face. Cherry, baby, how bout a big smile for your fans?

The young womans incurious eyes were open. They were not sea-green, mint-green, pea-green or any hue of green. They were brown.

Goddammit, the photographer growled, lowering his Nikon.

The woman on the stretcher grinned behind the oxygen mask and blew him a kiss.

Grabbing at Jimmy Campos arm, the photographer cried, Gimme back my money!

Mister, I dont know what youre talking about, said the paramedic, elbowing the sweaty creep back into the shadows.

Inside a chauffeured black Suburban, racing across the MacArthur Causeway toward Jackson Memorial Hospital, a performer known as Cherry Pye was retching loudly into a silver-plated ice bucket. Her real name was Cheryl Bunterman, one of many ferociously guarded secrets about her life. Since the age of fourteen, when shed first appeared in a dubious buckskin cowgirl outfit on the Nickelodeon network, Cheryl Bunterman had been introduced to one and all as Cherry Pye.

The person whod invented that shamelessly porny name was sitting next to Cherry Pye in the third leather bench seat of the big Suburban, stroking her daughters crusty blond hair. Feel better now? Janet Bunterman inquired soothingly.

No, Momma, I feel like shit. Cherry whimpered, hurled, and then drifted off again. Half-sitting and half-sprawled, she wore a white terry-cloth robe, courtesy of the Stefano Hotel, and nothing underneath it. Even in semi-consciousness her small red-knuckled hands remained fastened on the rim of the ice bucket.

Janet Bunterman had long ago chosen to overlook her offsprings promiscuous fondness for drugs and alcohol, and on this particular occasion decreed that a late snack of spoiled shellfish was to blame for Cherrys current debilitation. Also riding in the vehicle were a locally recruited physician, two stone-faced publicists, a hairstylist and a chunky bodyguard named Lev, who claimed to have served with the Mossad.

Who ordered those vile scallops from room service, anyway? Janet Bunterman demanded.

Cherry did, said Lev.

Nonsense, snapped the superstars mother.

And also the two bottles of Grey Goose.

Lev, how many times have I warned you about calling 911? Like shes some sort of civilian.

The bodyguard said, I thought she was dying.

Oh please. Weve been through so many of these gastritis scares.

The doctor looked neutrally at his new patient, but the publicists, who were identical twins, exchanged dour glances. The hairstylist yawned like a cheetah.