Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen Read Free Book Online Page B

don’t you just get rid of the damn things?”
    “I like them.”
    “More important, do they like you?”
    “We get along fine. In return for food and shelter, they give me unconditional indifference.”
    Gallo said he knew a topless dancer in Oakland Park who would be thrilled to have the snakes for her stage act. “She’d give ‘em a good home, too. The kind we all dream about.”
    “Thanks anyway.” Rolvaag stood up. “I’d better get going before those damn rodents hot-wire my car.”
    “You’re one bent penny,” Gallo said, not unkindly. “Let’s wrap up Mrs. Perrone by Friday, okay?”
    “Friday?”
    “Hey, they can’t all be winners, Karl. Some cases, there’s only so much you can do.”
    Especially in six days, Rolvaag thought irritably. He said, “One thing her husband told me, she was a star swimmer back in college.”
    “Yeah, well, I seriously doubt she practiced diving off ocean liners or swimming with sharks. Give it till Friday, Karl. You can keep the file open, but let’s slide it to the bottom of the pile.”
    “You betcha.”
    Later, driving home with the box of rats, Rolvaag remembered the letter in his briefcase. He was miffed at himself for not mentioning it to Gallo, so that the captain could begin processing the paperwork for Rolvaag’s resignation.
    First thing Monday, the detective vowed. He was looking forward to getting out of this steaming sump and moving back to Minnesota. He truly was.

Five
    Charles Regis Perrone was a biologist by default.
    Medical school had been his first goal—specifically, a leisurely career in radiology. The promise of wealth had attracted him to health care, but as a devoted hypochondriac he was repelled by the idea of interacting with actual sick people. Perusing X rays in the relatively hygienic seclusion of a laboratory had seemed an appealing option, one that would leave plenty of time for recreation.
    Chaz’s master plan was derailed by his own lubricious appetites. During those pre-med years he spent more time in condoms than he did in the stacks, and consequently meandered through the University of Florida with a less than dazzling 2.1 GPA. Not many medical schools avidly pursue C students, but Chaz wasn’t crushed. He’d already decided that being a doctor would cut too onerously into his social schedule, and that he would devise another way to get rich.
    In the meantime he sailed forth into the world armed with his Ken-doll good looks, his priapic affability and a bachelor’s degree in a subject he loathed—biology. Three months after graduation he reluctantly moved back home with his mother, whose new husband, an addled ex-RAF pilot named Roger, delighted in tormenting Chaz with odd pranks. Whenever he snuck into a bathroom to whack off, which was several times a day, Roger would turn up the Irish Rovers full blast, rap on the doorjamb and chant, “Bad monkey! Bad monkey!” in an eerie falsetto.
    Chaz suffered under his mother’s roof, but without a job there seemed no escape. Only one prospective employer had displayed a glint of interest in his college credentials—the Bay County Humane Society, which was looking for just the right person to hose down the kennels twice a day.
    It dawned on Chaz that he was doomed to minimum-wage hell unless he obtained a master’s degree, so he purchased one from a popular diploma mill in Colorado. The eight-week mail-order course guaranteed graduation (with honors) for a fee of $999, which Chaz remorselessly conned from his mother. Any topic vaguely related to biology was acceptable for a thesis paper, double-spacing being the only academic requirement. Chaz’s opus, researched one afternoon in the produce section of the local supermarket, was titled “A Comparative Analysis of Late-Season Oranges, Ruby Grapefruits and Tangelos.”
    Ten days after mailing off the finished manuscript—a cashier’s check clipped to the cover page, as required—he received a certified letter stating that the