Always one to make the best of a thoroughly bad situation, Warlock concluded that his inadvertent disguise might help him break through the homosexual underground, or overground, as it appeared to be in Key West where these people cavorted in public at will. The Sunday school lesson of Sodom and Gomorrah came to mind but he had forgotten the conclusion other than a woman had been turned into a pillar of salt. His getup, therefore, assumed the virtue of being in the line of duty: Rabun’s son was gay and might very well be held captive in some sort of gay hideout. The son’s request for a quarter of a million dollars to start a gay restaurant might be a concealed ransom plea. These people were feminine, frivolous, inventive; according to Garth, he had been thwarted in the art world by the gay art Mafia. Warlock had tended to take Garth’s complaint cum grano salis, principally because the man’s art seemed to be a dull, faddish sham compared to that of the great Gauguin.

All these thoughts—rather, these questionable assumptions—whirred in his mind on the dawn of his forty-third birthday. Dawn was not his favorite time by any means but Bib, the fat man from the cocktail lounge, had promised him a boat ride. The previous, uneventful day had led him to a huge marina he had discovered just down the road from his dreary trailer. The whole trailer camp was littered with vicious guard dogs on short chains; at least the economically defeated could own big mean dogs. This served to make him sentimental and lonely for old Hudley. The tropics had tended to defeat his naturally sentimental disposition: gravel roads, barn swallows, baby mice, the Save the Children ads on TV, all swept him away into a state where his throat would constrict, and which could only be relieved by a long sigh. Anyway, he had gone to the marina and remet Bib, who sat with a group of other idle fishing guides drinking beer and eating smoked fish. Bib had embarrassingly explained to the guides that Warlock wasn’t a “homo,” but an undercover man from Michigan. The sixth piña colada had evidently made Warlock indiscreet. But the information made the guides very respectful, and after a few beers Warlock regaled them with tailing tactics cribbed from J. Kirk Barefoot.

“A few years ago I was tracking the blond wife of a very prominent auto executive in Detroit. You’d all recognize the name, though I’m not at liberty to divulge it. It was a tough divorce case with a lot of property on the line. The marriage was kaput and the executive had fallen in love with his old high school sweetheart but his young current wife wouldn’t let him go. He knew she was playing around, in fact, it’s fair to say she was a nympho.”