Squeeze Me

TWO
 
The Otter Falls subdivision was on the westernmost outskirts of Boca Raton. A small drab gatehouse marked the entrance. The young, thick-tongued guard said nobody named Angela Armstrong was on the vendor/contractor list. Angie said she wasn t a vendor/ contractor; she was a specialist.
 
What s that in the back of your truck? the guard asked.
 
Capture noose. Bungie cords. Road kennel.
 
I meant the gun.
 
Gas-propelled rifle. Shoots tranquilizer darts.
 
For real? No effin way.
 
Doubt I ll need it today, Angie said. A man named Fleck left a message asking me to come right away. Unless there s another Otter Falls around here . . .
 
This is the only one I heard of.

Wild guess: No otters and no waterfall.

The guard rubbed his fleshy chin. It s just that Mr. Fleck didn t call and put your name on the list.
 
That s because he didn t have my name, said Angie. All he had was a number.
 
Drowsily the guard shook his head. Sorry. It s the rules.

I believe you re baked.

What! No way.

Sir, there s a vape pen in the pocket of your uniform.

The guard sheepishly moved the pen out of sight. I am totally legal, he said. His mouth had gone dry. I got my state card and everything. The weed is for migraines.
 
Angie smiled. I d get stoned, too, cooped up all day in this glorified outhouse. But at least they gave you a/c. Some of these homeowners associations, they re so cheap they make the guards roast in the heat.
 
I can t let you in. That s how the dude before me got fired.
 
Understood. So, if Mr. Fleck calls up asking where I am, please tell him you did your job and turned me away. Angie put the truck in reverse. Also, tell him good luck with that raccoon.
 
As Angie backed up, the stoner guard scrambled out of the booth waving at her: Yo, ma am, wait! I didn t know that s why you were here.
 

CARL HIAASEN was born and raised in Florida. He is the author of fourteen previous novels, including the best sellers Bad Monkey, Lucky You, Nature Girl, Razor Girl, Sick Puppy, Skinny Dip, and Star Island, as well as six best-selling children's books, Hoot, Flush, Scat, Chomp, Skink, and Squirm. His most recent work of nonfiction is Assume the Worst, a collaboration with the artist Roz Chast.

Carl Hiaasen remains the undefeated, unscored-upon conscience of Florida, maybe the conscience of the whole country. I laughed and laughed and laughed while I read Squeeze Me until I remembered, hey, I live in Palm Beach! Oh yeah, spoiler alert the python did it. James Patterson

"By the evidence of the scabrous and unrelentingly hilarious Squeeze Me, the Trump era is truly Carl Hiaasen s moment . . . Just dive in and have a wonderful time." Richard Lipez, The Washington Post

"Novelists, like the rest of us, can t look away from the Trump administration. Unfortunately, they haven t found much interesting to say about it. Carl Hiaasen s thriller Squeeze Me is, blessedly, an exception . . . Hiaasen is clear-eyed: He meets the president on his subterranean level . . . Squeeze Me is funny, but as with Hiaasen s best work, it s grounded in genuine outrage over the corruption that increasingly defines American political and cultural life. And it turns out there s no better place to invoke that outrage than the wealthy swamps of Florida." Alex Shephard, The New Republic

"Pink pearls, pythons and a philandering president add up to a rather unusual Palm Beach social season in Carl Hiaasen s riotously funny new novel, Squeeze Me . . . [Hiaasen] knows and loves Florida and hates what has been done to it as much as anyone I know of, and those passions shape his razor-sharp satirical fiction." Colette Bancroft, The Tampa Bay Times


"Squeeze Me is vintage Hiaasen wry humor, social commentary and satire akin to Jonathan Swift, and all fun." Oline H. Cogdill, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel