Squeeze Me

The POTUS orders a regular supply of key lime pies from a mom-and-pop bakery because he consumes one pie each night. During the bakery’s regular delivery to Casa Bellicosa, someone slips a live python into the truck. Angie is immediately called to meet Crosby and Ryskamp on the scene. She speculates that the snakes aren’t migrating to Palm Beach on their own: “‘If this were a natural population shift, we’d be finding all different sizes,’ she said. ‘So it’s not a migration, it’s an unleashing’” (211). Someone is deliberately releasing pythons in the vicinity of Casa Bellicosa.

Still in jail, Diego is facing additional threats. Someone on the outside has offered an inmate $6,000 to kill the immigrant. Fortunately, Diego is a skilled boxer and fends off the attack. He begs to be taken to a more secure facility, but nothing comes of his request.

Ryskamp gives Pruitt’s current address to Angie, and she finds him holed up at his sister’s apartment. She unleashes a live bobcat inside and warns the poacher she will do worse if he ever threatens her family again. She removes the bobcat after it does a thorough job of shredding the draperies and intimidating Pruitt.

That night, an old Black man named Jim Tile goes to pay a visit to his equally elderly friend. The latter is an eccentric who lives on a remote island in the Everglades. He micro-doses with LSD, only has one eye, and routinely dines on roadkill. He also keeps a snake habitat swarming with pythons. Tile is concerned by what he sees on the island: “He couldn’t stop staring up at the tree canopy, which at first he’d thought was decorated with long streamers of dingy crepe. Now he realized that the garlands in the boughs were made of something else” (222). Tile leaves and gets in touch with Angie. He wants her to have a talk with the eccentric.

The next day, Mockingbird summons Ryskamp for a talk. She knows that Keith is really an Arab but has changed his name to avoid upsetting her xenophobic husband. It would be a scandal for the Secret Service if Keith’s nationality were ever made public. In exchange for suppressing this information, Mockingbird insists that Keith be reassigned to her detail along with a female agent to keep up appearances. She also asks that security be reassigned to the Potussies because they are big campaign contributors, and one of them might know about her affair. Ryskamp agrees to her terms.

The agent is already stressed because of the upcoming Commander’s Ball. This is an annual political fundraiser staged by the Potussies. Even though the President and First Lady have been warned that someone is planting pythons on Palm Beach, the couple refuses to flee to Washington. Ryskamp plans to have Angie on hand for the event to wrangle any unwelcome wildlife.

Spalding’s friend Christian works as a technician to maintain the President’s tanning bed. A number of mysterious malfunctions have been occurring lately. One morning, while testing the bed, Christian sees sparks coming from one of the UV tubes. Thinking there might be an electrical malfunction, he replaces the tube and assumes the problem is solved.

At the same time, Angie meets with Tile and agrees to visit the recluse on the island. He goes by the name of Skink but is actually a former governor of Florida: “Angie hadn’t yet been born when Clinton Tyree fled the governor’s mansion in a fever of despair, later re-launching himself as a vagabond saboteur, striking out at everything he believed was going wrong in Florida” (234).

Back as Casa Bellicosa, Mockingbird resumes her affair with Keith, whose real name is Ahmet. Although he fears that there will eventually be repercussions, he doesn’t want to end the romance: “Ahmet wanted to believe that, beyond the heat of the moment, Mockingbird cared for him as much as he cared for her. He understood it was likely the biggest mistake of his life; it was also the biggest rush” (239).

Angie goes to check on Diego in jail. He is now in the infirmary because a group of Aryan inmates tried to kill him. Once again, the murder attempt was unsuccessful. Diego is convinced that he won’t get out of prison alive. Angie urges him not to give up hope. She then leaves to hire an airboat to take her to Skink’s island. She isn’t sure what kind of reception she will get once she arrives.

Meanwhile, Ryskamp continues to do damage control prior to the Commander’s Ball. He is concerned about the President’s latest mistress:

His visit to Mastodon’s mistress was unofficial. The agency hadn’t sent him to speak with her; he merely wanted to confirm for himself that the commander-in-chief was banging the same exotic dancer who was secretly shopping a racy book proposal to half a dozen publishers in New York (248).

During their conversation, the mistress tells Ryskamp that the President has arranged for her to attend the Commander’s Ball with an escort. Ryskamp thinks this is a recipe for disaster.

When Angie arrives on the island in the Everglades, Skink welcomes her cordially. He followed her court case against Pruitt and admired the way she lopped off the poacher’s hand. She now learns that he anonymously covered her legal fees, too. Angie observes Skink’s appearance and demeanor: “For someone his age he displayed a freakish vitality; the soothing cave-deep voice and movie-star smile, which were part of the legend, failed to offset the thrumming, unsettled force of his presence” (251).

The two share a meal of coyote roadkill and glasses of rum that Skink spikes with a small amount of LSD. Angie is tripping by the time the ex-governor shows her his reptile collection. The trees surrounding his campsite are festooned with shed snake skins. Inside a makeshift habitat constructed of piles of books and panes of glass, Tyree keeps dozens of pythons. Her drugged state causes Angie to perceive the snakes as beautiful and iridescent. Skink admits to planting the snakes on the grounds of Casa Bellicosa. He hopes they will scare the President out of Florida and back to Washington. Angie is unable to convince him to give up his dangerous pranks. She departs the island after promising never to reveal Skink’s location.