Night Vision by Randy Wayne White Read Free Book Online Page B

make more money dealing gear than they could ever make running his mother’s shitty trailer parks or teaching yoga classes, which Frankie sometimes did. They bought vials by the gross. They bought two vacuum machines and a label maker, too.
    Turned out, they were right about making money.
    Dopers thought a fresh peyote button was expensive? Ask a bodybuilder about the price of a vial of Masteron or high-grade Testosterone-E. Frankie could walk into any gym in South Florida where muscle freaks congregated and make an EQ horsey whinnying noise and that would bring them running.
    Juicers knew exactly what the lady was carrying in her gym bag and they were damn eager to buy. Because of the feds, dependable gear was so goddamn hard to get, Squires and Frankie were now making a small fortune, all in cash, selling their home-brewed goodies in kits, complete with pins and syringes if that’s what the bros wanted.
    Their little organization was becoming so well known, and their products so trusted, that gym rats in South Florida had come up with a nickname for the stuff. They called it Gator Juice. As in, “You tried the Gator Juice Tren? Or the Gator Juice A-bombs? Gator Juice is goddamn grade-A shit. Good to go, man. As in G-two-G .”
    Squires’s eyes kept swinging from Ford’s billfold to the drama taking place out there on the lake. A couple of chilies had come through the crowd carrying a big military-type light called a Golight, so Squires pocketed the scientist’s cash, then handed both billfolds to one of the chilies , saying to him, “Hang on to these, will ya, amigo ? Now, give me that goddamn light.”
    With the Golight, Squires could see that it was getting interesting out there on the water where Ford was doing something that would’ve been hard to believe if it wasn’t actually happening. Ford had his left arm slung over the gator’s back while Fifi struggled to swim, still carrying Carlson sideways in her mouth. What Ford was trying to do, Squires realized, was climb onto the gator’s back.
    Un-by-God-believable!
    Into Squires’s mind came the image of the big Australian, the crocodile hunter guy who he used to like to watch on TV, which made what was happening easier to comprehend. But once the scientist got onto the gator’s back, then what?
    Squires placed the big spotlight on his shoulder to steady the thing, then leaned to focus the beam on something the scientist had in his hand.
    What the hell was the dude carrying?
    A hammer, maybe, that’s what it looked like. No ... not a hammer. It looked like Ford was trying to steady an itty-bitty pocket pistol behind one of Fifi’s eyes—which was a stupid goddamn thing to try. At least, Squires hoped it was a stupid goddamn thing to try.
    Suddenly, he could feel that sickening feeling in his stomach again, worried the crazy do-gooder was going to find a way to free Carlson and screw up the only good luck Squires had had in a week. But it was pointless, what the guy was trying to do ... wasn’t it ?
    Squires hoped it was true. There was no pussy pistol in the world with enough stopping power to . . .
    WHAP-WHAP!
    Squires jumped when he heard the gunshots. Then he stood straight, realizing that the man had managed to get a couple of rounds off.
    Behind him, the crowd made a collective Ooohing noise as they watched the alligator’s tail slam sideways, then tilt upward like a crane. The tail stood there for an instant, before the big animal rolled and then sank from sight.
    Shit! Where was Carlson?
    Squires fanned the light back and forth, searching. Maybe the nosy old turd had gone down with the gator. No . . . no such luck. Carlson was still out there, floundering to stay on the surface while the hippie swam toward him.
    Sons a bitches!
    Squires felt an acidic surge move from his abdomen toward his head, the signal that he was becoming seriously pissed off. It was a steroid charge that he had experienced many times but seldom as strong as tonight—which