Prologue
Florida. America’s lowest State. A hurricane-battered peninsula that hangs like a half-engorged member below the continental mainframe. A land besieged by a constant influx of derelicts and drifters who arrive in droves via land, air, and water all with romantic fancies of bikini-clad bombshells and lunar landings. But rarely do these dreams come to fruit. Florida is not for the meek and wary. It is full of sharks, and so are its waters.
Chapter
On August 4th, the heart of hurricane season, a fisherman named Slim Zimmerman spotted a large bale bobbing in the warm tongue of the Gulf Stream. He idled the twin Evinrudes on his thirty-four foot Midnight Express then posted at the stern in his camouflaged weenie bikini, sipping beer and gazing at the closest thing to a miracle his unhallowed eyes had ever seen.
“Well, it’s about goddamn time.”
Slim’s first mate, Barley Weir, who’d been rigging ballyhoo baits at the bow, abandoned the task and ambled back to investigate. He was thirty-three, a generation younger than Slim, with an appearance that ebbed from seasoned surfer to dirty vagrant in accordance with his whisker length and bathing schedule.
He assumed a wide stance against the building seas and surveyed the waters as the first gusty breaths of a tropical wave tossed his scraggly coif about his face. “About goddamn time for what?”
Slim nodded his balding head toward the drifting object, noting its slick cellophane skin and suitcase-sized girth.
“About goddamn time this old dog had his day.”
The sun was sinking, spreading along the water like gold marmalade, so Barley shaded his eyes with a lazy salute before spotting the curious flotsam ensnared in a weed line. He rasped his fingernails through his facial scruff and glanced at Slim.
“It’s not the body of that missing Callaway girl, is it?”
Slim groaned. “Come on fruitcake. That there’s what you call a square grouper?”
“Square grouper? What the hell’s that?”
“Used to be as common in these parts as titty jobs and lobster pots.” Slim moved back to the helm and engaged the twin engines, edging the Midnight Express toward what appeared to be enough cocaine to keep Kate Moss photogenic for a decade.
“Let’s get this sucker into the boat before somebody sees us,” Slim ordered.
Barley unhitched the gaff from its bindings then leaned his thighs against the gunwale and pointed the long-handled hook toward the water. As they approached, Slim clunked the engines into neutral then slugged back his final draw of beer, crumpling the empty can between his fingers and tossing it overboard.
Barley watched the can bubble into the depths then yanked the gaff upward, driving the razor tip deep into the meat of the bale. “How many times have I asked you not to litter?”
Slim hustled back to help haul the heavy package onto the deck. “Don’t act like such a bunny-fucking hippie. I’m pretty sure them cans are biodegradable.”
Subtropical High Description:
Luck turns when two fishermen stumble across 150 pounds of cocaine adrift in the Gulf Stream. With a street value over eight million dollars, the grungy duo sets up a buyer then rumbles through Florida in their 1973 El Camino to unload the square grouper and end their financial woes.
Unfortunately, in their efforts to make the rendezvous, they become unexpectedly entangled with a host of unsavory characters, including an expatriate haunted by his single testicle, a destitute real estate developer with a penchant for GMILFs, a toupee-wearing pederast, Florida’s first closet-gay Governor, and a game warden turned eco-maniac, all of whom must be dealt with as a Category 5 hurricane, Cyclone Tyrone, spins ashore.
