The Stingray Shuffle полностью

“Yes, sir, I just saw it on the news…. No problem…. I’ll have ’em ready.”

Roscoe hung up and poured a drink. “This is the easiest money I’ll ever make.”

It was more than easy. Breeding Medflies — well, try not to breed them. A sealed warehouse, two flies, a bunch of rotten fruit, and you’re in business. The expensive step was the sterilization, which was why Roscoe skipped it.

The C-130 transport plane flew over the heart of Florida citrus country at three thousand feet. Roscoe was in the back of the cargo bay, supervising workers with gloves, goggles and gas masks as they released the first flies from special bio tanks. Bright light and a whispering roar filled the plane as the aft cargo door slowly lowered, the insects momentarily swirling around in a dense swarm before taking to the sky.

Roscoe laughed. The state had started with only three flies, and those were already dead. But look out below! A million horny flies on the way!

The copilot came back in the bay and yelled over the engines that someone wanted to talk to Roscoe on the radio. The workers cracked open another tank of flies as Roscoe headed for the cockpit.

It was one of the state agriculture officials: “I just heard the good news.”

“Yes, we’re releasing the flies now,” Roscoe said into the microphone.

“No, I’m not talking about that,” said the official. “It’s the Germans. They’ve done it!”

“Done what?”

“The mechanical picker. It works! We tested it this morning. Mr. Weege, you’re on your way to becoming an extremely rich man!”

The microphone bounced on the cockpit floor. “Hello? Hello?”

The workers releasing flies looked up when they heard the shouting.

“Stop it! Stop it!” yelled Roscoe, running through the cargo hold, snatching at the air, trying to catch flies with his bare hands, hysterical, still running, right out the back of the plane and into the wild blue.

2

It was another perfect chamber of commerce morning in Miami Beach. The sewage slick had cleared up, and the last of the ninety-two Haitians who swam ashore after the daily capsizing were apprehended in the Clark Gable booth at Wolfie’s deli before most people knew what was happening.

The sun was high and strong, beach worshipers covered the sand in European swimsuits, and fashion photographers barked instructions at malnourished girls. “Turn!… Pout!… Look like you’re on heroin!”

An inbound 747 appeared over the Atlantic, its passengers getting their first glimpse of land after the six-hour flight from the Continent. The jumbo jet’s shadow crossed the beach and the futuristic lifeguard shacks and the art deco hotels on Collins Avenue.

All up and down Collins, people lounged on sidewalk patios. They shielded their eyes and looked up at the jet. The new café society, drinking espresso, speaking French and German, smoking Turkish cigarettes without guilt. There was a traffic dispute. Frat brothers in a Jeep that said No Fear! began shouting profanities at another car. Men in linen suits got out of a Mercedes, dragged one punk from the Jeep and flamenco-danced on his crotch until they heard sirens and fled. Nobody saw anything. Chicness resumed.

Five distinguished women in their late forties sat on the patio in front of the Hotel Nash. Tasteful single-piece bathing suits, sunglasses, wide-brimmed straw hats. A pitcher of mimosas and five cell phones on the table, next to five books. It was the quarterly literary field trip of their reading club, Books, Booze and Broads. The name was a whimsical joke on themselves; they were trying to break out of obsessively responsible lives now that all their children had left for college. Two cell phones rang.

The five books on the table were all the same paperback, The Stingray Shuffle, by Ralph Krunkleton. The women had been on a Krunkleton kick lately.

“I think this was his best book yet,” said the Latino businesswoman, getting off the phone.

“Me, too,” said the redheaded commercial artist. “All those crazy orange harvesting machines.”

“I loved how Roscoe ran right out the back of the plane with the Medflies,” added the attorney with cropped blond hair. “Never saw that coming.”

“Wait till you find out what happens to the five million dollars,” said the petite veterinarian.

“Shhh! Don’t tell me! I’m not there yet!” said the self-assured aerospace engineer, flagging down a waiter for another pitcher.

The club went way back, started quite by accident in 1971. It was a Monday morning in July, an office waiting room filled with crying, screaming children who occasionally broke free and had to be chased. They were in Gainesville, the middle of Florida far from ocean breezes, and the room was muggy with the musk of spent diapers. The air conditioner didn’t work, and a single electric fan whirred unevenly atop a crumpled stack of Southern Bride.

A clerk slid open the reception window and looked at her clipboard. “Samantha Bridges?”