"Insubordination!" Wiley bellowed. "A group like ours can't survive with insubordination. You know what this is? A test, that's what. That slippery hot-blooded weasel is trying to push me as far as he can. He thinks I'm not tough enough. He wants mucho macho.He wants machetes and machine pistols and nightscopes. He wants us to dress in fatigues and crawl through minefields and bite the necks off live chickens. That's his idea of revolution. No subtlety, no wit, no goddamn style."
Wiley was getting hoarse. He dropped the iron mallet. Viceroy Wilson handed him a jar of cold Gatorade.
"We need to find him," the Indian said.
"Damn soon," added Wilson.
Wiley wiped his mouth. "Any clues?"
Viceroy Wilson shook his head. In one corner of the warehouse, on Bernal's pitiful carpet remnant, sat the Smith-Corona typewriter. It was empty.
"He won't be back," Tommy Tigertail said.
"A loose cannon," growled Wiley, subsiding a bit.
Viceroy Wilson decided there was no point in keeping Jesus Bernal's secret. "The other night he was on the phone to his old dudes. Trying to get back on the A-team."
"The First Weekend in July?"
"They told him no way," Wilson said.
"So he decided to put on a one-man show," Wiley said.
"Looks that way."
"Well, that's gratitude for you."
"Let's try to find him," Tommy Tigertail repeated, with consternation.
"Hopeless," Skip Wiley said. "Anyway, he'll crawl back when he gets lonely—or when he can't stand the heat from Garcia."
"Oh fine," Viceroy Wilson grumbled. "Just what we need."
Wiley said, "Besides, I hate to completely give up on the guy." What he really hated was the thought that anyone could resist his charisma or so blithely spurn his leadership. Recruiting a hard-core case like Jesus Bernal had been a personal triumph; losing him stung Skip Wiley's ego.
"Look, I've got to know," he said. "Are you boys still with the program?"
"Tighter than ever," Viceroy Wilson said. The Indian nodded in agreement.
"What about the chopper?"
"Watson Island. Nine tonight," Wilson said. "The pilot's cool. Free-lance man. Does some jobs for the Marine Patrol, the DEA and the blockade-runners, too. Long as the price is nice."
"And the goodies?" Wiley asked.
"Safe and sound," Tommy Tigertail reported.
"Nobody got hurt?"
The Indian smiled—these white men! "No, of course not," he said. "Everybody had a ball."
Wiley sighed. "Good, then we're on—with or without our Cuban friend." He reached into a pocket and came out with something in the palm of his hand. To Viceroy Wilson the object looked like a pink castanet.
"What the hell," Wiley said. He carefully placed the object on the keyboard of Jesus Bernal's abandoned typewriter. "Just in case he comes back."
It was a brand-new set of dentures.
Cab Mulcahy had waited all night for Skip Wiley to call again. He'd attached a small tape recorder to the telephone next to the bed and slept restlessly, if at all. There was no question of Wiley reaching him if he'd wanted—Skip knew the number, and had never been shy about calling. Back when he was writing in full stride, Wiley would phone Mulcahy at least once a week to demand the firing or public humiliation of some mid-level editor who had dared to alter the column. These tirades normally lasted about thirty minutes until Wiley's voice gave out and he hung up. Once in a while Mulcahy discovered that Skip was right—somebody indeed had mangled a phrase or even edited a fact error into the column; in these instances the managing editor would issue a firm yet discreet rebuke, but Wiley seldom was satisfied. He was constantly threatening to murder or sexually mutilate somebody in the newsroom and, on one occasion, actually fired a speargun at an unsuspecting editor at the city desk. For weeks there was talk of a lawsuit, but eventually the poor shaken fellow simply quit and took a job with a public-relations firm in Tampa. Wiley had been remorseless; as far as he was concerned, anyone who couldn't weather a little criticism had no business in journalism anyway. Cab Mulcahy had been dismayed: firing a spear at an editor was a sure way to bring in the unions. To punish Wiley, Mulcahy had forced him to drive out to the Deauville Hotel one morning and interview Wayne Newton. To no one's surprise, the resulting column was unprintable. The speargun episode eventually was forgiven.
As a habit Skip Wiley called Mulcahy's home only in moments of rage and only in the merciless wee hours of the morning, when Wiley could be sure of holding the boss's undivided attention.
Which is why Cab Mulcahy scarcely slept Friday night, and why he was so fretful by Saturday morning when Skip still hadn't phoned. Keyes called twice to see if Wiley had made contact, but there was nothing to report; both of them worried that Skip might have changed his mind. By midafternoon Mulcahy—still unshaven, and rambling the house in a rumpled bathrobe—was battling a serious depression. He feared that he had missed the only chance to reason with Wiley or bring him in for help.
He was fixing a tuna sandwich on toast when the phone finally rang at half-past five. He hurried into the bedroom, closed the door, punched the tape recorder.
"Hello?"
"You viper!"
"Skip?"
"What kind of snake would let Bloodworth sodomize a Christmas column!"
"Where are you, buddy?"
"At the Gates of Hell, waiting. I told 'em to save you a ringside seat at the inferno."
Mulcahy was impressed by Wiley's vitriol; not bad for a five-day-old rage. "I'm sorry, Skip. I should never have done it. It was wrong."
"Immoral is what it was."
"Yes, you're right. I apologize. But I don't think morality is your strong suit, at the moment."
"Whoa," Wiley said. "Blowing up Ricky Bloodworth was notmy idea, Cab. It was one of those things that happens in the fever of revolution. Corrective measures are under way."
"He's going to recuperate. You're damn lucky, Skip."
"Yeah, I paid a visit to the hospital."
"You did? But there's supposed to be a police guard!"
Wiley said, "Don't get all upset. The kid was thrilled to see me. I brought him a stuffed skunk."
Mulcahy decided to make his move. A conversation with Wiley was like a freight train: you either got aboard fast or you missed the whole damn thing.
"If you're in town, why don't you stop by the house?"
"Thanks, but I'm extremely busy, Cab."
"I could meet you somewhere. At the club, maybe."
"Let's cut the crap, okay?"
"Sure, Skip."
"Keyes isn't as smart as he thinks."
"Oh."
"Neither are you."
"What do you mean?"
"In due time, old friend."
"Why are you doing this?" The wrong thing to say—Mulcahy knew it immediately.
"Why am I doing this? Cab, don't you read your own newspaper? Are you blind? What do you see when you stare out that big bay window, anyway? Maybe you can't understand because you weren't here thirty years ago, when it was paradise. Before they put parking meters on the beach. Before the beach disappeared. God, Cab, don't tell me you're like the rest of these migratory loons. They think it's heaven down here as long as the sun's out, long as they don't have to put chains on the tires, it's marvelous. They thinkit's really paradise, because, compared to Buffalo, it is. But, Cab, compared to paradise ... "
"Skip, I know how you feel, believe me. But it'll never work."
"Why not?"
"You can't evacuate South Florida, for God's sake. These people are here to stay."
"That's what the cavemen said about tyrannosaurs."
"Skip, listen to me. They won't leave for a bloody hurricane—what makes you think they'll move out after a few lousy bombs?"