He called Desie and told her about the kill. "It was classic," he said, smacking on the cigar.

"How so?" his wife asked.

"Just being out there in the bush. The sunrise. The mist. The twigs crackling under your boots. I wish you'd come along sometime."

"What did she do?" his wife asked. "When you blasted her, I mean."

"Well – "

"Did she charge?"

"No, Des. Everything was over in a second. It was a clean shot."

Desirata was Palmer Stoat's third wife. She was thirty-two years old, an avid tennis player and an occasional liberal. Stoat's buddies once called her a bunny hugger because she wasn't a fan of blood sports. It all depends on whose blood you're talking about. Stoat had said with a taut laugh.

"I suppose you took video?' Desie said to her husband. "Your first endangered species and all."

"As a matter of fact, no. No video."

"Oh, Dick's office called."

Stoat rolled down the window and flicked the ash off his Cuban. "When?"

"Four times," Desie said. "Starting at seven-thirty."

"Next time let the machine pick up."

"I was awake anyway."

Stoat said, "Who in Dick's office?"

"Some woman."

That really narrows it down, Stoat thought. Dick Artemus was the governor of Florida, and he liked to hire women.

Desie said, "Should I make dinner?"

"No, let's you and I go out. To celebrate, OK?"

"Great. I'll wear something dead."

"You're a riot, Alice."

Palmer Stoat phoned Tallahassee and left a message on the voice mail of Lisa June Peterson, an aide to the governor. Many of Dick Artemus's staff members went by three names, a vestige of their college sorority days at FSU. So far, none of them had consented to have sex with Palmer Stoat, but it was still early in the new administration. Eventually they would come to see how clever, powerful and charismatic Stoat was, one of the two or three top lobbyists in the state. Only in politics would a job like that get you laid; no normal women were impressed by what Stoat did for a living, or even much interested in it.